The Woman at the Well
by Evil Asian Genius
Summary: Co-written with Falstaff. After five years adrift and alone, Azelma is offered a chance at respectability in America. But the matter is complicated by the appearance of figures from the past, the living and the dead.
1. Prologue

**The Woman at the Well ~ Prologue**

A hot and unnatural wind blew from the cane fields, roiling over the thatched roofs of tenant worker's shacks and sweeping up the hill that lay beyond, crowned and crested by the houses of the elder families of Calvary. It bore on its back a large quantity of black ash and charred plant matter, and as it moved it swept up fallen leaves, discarded paper, dust from the unpaved road that ran along the base of the hill. All these small articles it flung against the sides of the hilltop mansions, battering their bolted doors and shuttered windows.

In the morning, the house servants would be dispatched to clean the detritus from the porches and to wipe the smudges from the windows, for the ladies of Calvary did not abide by disorder or cobwebs. Each had honed a sharp eye for the detection of filth.

It was the rap of the wind on her bedroom window that alerted Azelma that the burnoff had begun. Up here on the hill, no cry had gone up; no one played a jerking fiddle reel. To open their doors, to raise their curtains, even a crack, would let in the muck that was without.

But Azelma had no such qualms about dirt, and she had not been so long in Calvary that she had lost all curiosity. Leaving her Devotional behind at the writing desk, she opened the balcony door enough to slip through. The night was damp and warm. A tendril of wicked wind whipped past her face, and dusted the carpet just inside with an accusing finger of black ash. Ash quickly coated her nightgown, too; turning the lower hem and the modest ruff of lace that gripped her throat - both places her dressing gown did not quite cover - to a dingy gray.

How they would scold her, she thought, if they saw her like this. Those dour lords of Calvary, the pecking matrons, the anemic little unmarried girls. It would be a full-blown scandal if one of them were to see her this way, barefoot and in only her nightclothes - "practically naked" they would say - watching the revelry in the valley below.

They terrified her, and in her small and secret way she hated them for it. That she, a real Parisian woman, a thief, a drinker of whiskey; she, who knew two dozen ways to win at cards or dice, two dozen more to make a little money off an easy mark; who had once - just once - been in a knife fight and come away no worse for the experience. That she, who had once had a sister as fearless as Joan and Boadicea and Olympia all combined, should tremble beneath the disapproving eyes of those provincial ladies was terrible to her. And yet she thought of them constantly, and strove to appease them though she knew it was impossible for someone like her. Of late, she had begun to wonder if they were really the ones deserving of contempt.

However, tonight, of all nights, Azelma could be sure she was safe from prying eyes. All the citizens of Calvary were buttoned away indoors, riding out the storm of frivolity. Her very aloneness made her bold, and Azelma crept to the end of the balcony. A gust of wind climbed up the side of the house and lifted her nightgown above her knees. She made no attempt to smooth it down.

She could see the flames in the valley below, hopping across the cane stalks like a smooth stone on the surface of a pond. A cloud of cruel black smoke loomed above the fields, rising higher. There was still a few inches of blue evening visible around the periphery, but the cloud was growing by the moment and soon the last of the sky would be blotted out.

They would be entombed down here, she thought. Every one of them, buried alive in this valley of cane.

The burnoff was an important part of the sugar harvesting process. The fire would be allowed to rage all night, removing the dry leaves from the stalks and chasing venomous snakes from the field. In the morning, all that would be left would be the cane stalks, singed, but unharmed, ripe for the reaping.

Such was what she had been told. But it was Azelma's first harvest season in Calvary, and the stories did not do justice to the height of the flames, nor the quickness with which they spread. For a moment, Azelma wondered if a rogue gust of wind, a miscalculation in the firebreak, hadn't given the blaze an opportunity to spread out of control. But she could still hear the sounds of singing from the field hands, and occasionally the screech and skitter of the impromptu string band.

The workers were Swedish, French, Irish, Indian, and Negro. They had no common language save for their songs, and so they sang frequently. Sometimes Azelma would recognize one of their melodies and she would feel herself draw a breath to join them, and the words would dance on her lips and clamor to be heard.

So far, she had always managed to stop herself in time.

The citizens of Calvary were avid haters of music. They allowed the field hands to engage in such egregious sin because they knew there was no salvation for them, but for one of their own to behave so would have been unpardonable. Azelma did not deceive herself into thinking that she belonged to their inner circle, but she had not yet been able to defy them either. The longer she stayed, the harder it became to contemplate such a thing.

The wind had kicked up as the fire spread, and Azelma had to strain to catch the singing over its howling.

Suddenly it stopped. The wind, the distant strain of song. The world was muffled in a heavy whine, and through it she heard sharp raps at her door.

"Go away." The words were on her lips, but she struggled to get them out. It would be Emmanuel. He would want her for his bed. She would say it was the wrong time…

"Go…" Her voice was a whisper as the heavy door creaked open. Mist floated in, a cold wet dankness that chilled her to her bones. A shadow entered, gaining flesh, gaining life as it came closer. Cold moonlight struck it, and she thought she knew that gait, that arrogant tilt of the head, the wispy trail of a stained and torn hem.

The bloody imprint of a small foot on the rug in her wake.

"Remember me?" A familiar voice, like unspoken beauty, heavy with amusement. It chilled Azelma's blood. It was a voice that she heard in memories, in vision, in dreams. Never awake. Never like this.

"Sister." She whispered.

Eponine smiled, and when she did, Azelma could see the bones behind her fragile cheeks, the splatter of old, dead blood staining her dress. Her long fingers, all the longer for the lack of flesh upon them. Talon-like, they brushed back dead hair, matted with the anonymous dirt of a pauper's grave.

"Did you forget me? I didn't forget you." Eponine whispered. The cacophony of that horrid, beastly whine grew until she couldn't stand it, and Azelma's knees grew weak. She leaned hard against the porch railing, trying to keep her feet.

"This is lovely," Eponine said, and she touched the corner of the immaculately made bed. The quilt split open beneath her fingers, and the carved bedpost seemed to shrink from her, and quick tongues of blue flame darted across the wood, blackening it. "You've done well for yourself, sister dear."

" 'Ponine…"

"I have a present for you. For your housewarming." Eponine drew closer, and Azelma could smell the dry rot of death, could see the hollows where her eyes would have been, consumed in bitter flame, a faint glow that seemed to be the only thing about her that truly could be alive.

"No, you're dead. You can't-" And a moment before she fainted, a horrible long breath that seemed to last a lifetime, she saw her sister's fingers tear through the delicate bones of her ribcage, and pull out a shriveled black heart.

"It's for you."

The last thing she remembered was the taste of that bitter, dried heart, as it passed through her lips, turning to dust on her tongue.

* * *

When she awoke, Azelma knew at once that something had changed. There was a weight within her breast that she had not felt before, as if a serpent had slithered inside and made its nest there. Wound its liquid body around her ribs in an impossible knot.

She remembered nothing after she had collapsed on the veranda, but she was back in her room now, buffeted by a mass of pillows and quilts. When she tried to sit up and felt how severely the blankets had been pulled down around her and tucked in, she knew she had not walked here on her own.

He had carried her then, she thought, and she felt welts of skin behind her knees and on the backs of her shoulders, where his arms would have been when he lifted her, begin to itch and crawl.

She felt no guilt over it. Shame was an art in Calvary, but Azelma was careful to take no part in it. Here, there was little opportunity for sin, but what wickednesses she could commit, to them Azelma held fast. She clutched them as a victim of a shipwreck would cling to a buoy.

She wanted to believe that she hadn't changed, but she knew that she had. The very fact that she now rose to meet her sins rather than let them roll over her unheeded proved that. It had only been a year, and already she had changed. What she would be like in five, in ten, in twenty on, she could no longer say.

Sick with fatalism, Azelma pushed back the covers and began to sit up. Halfway there, she paused, propped on her elbows. She had not realized she was not alone.

Emmanuel was slumped in an armchair at her bedside. His eyes were closed, one arm was draped carelessly, his hand limp and pointing at the floor.

She thought at first that he had fallen asleep, but then she saw his lips compress as if about to form words. His hand twitched, fingers curling in an aborted attempt at making a fist. He wasn't asleep; he was deep in prayer.

If left alone, he might not rouse for a long time. His gift for silent contemplation was greatly respected by the elders of Calvary Valley, for whom communion with God could only take place when the soul had slipped the fetters of the mortal world and stood with one metaphysical foot planted firmly in the physical realm and the other in the great mysteries beyond. There was hardly one amongst the citizens of Calvary who could not boast a brush with the Divine, but none had the talent for meditation that Emmanuel did. For, it was sometimes said, they did shrink away when confronted with Death's Lights, but he alone rose to meet them.

He alone, the Heir; the Prophet.

"Thank God," he murmured abruptly. He had heard her after all; the faintest of rustles had given her away. "You're awake." He smiled, and the light of it seemed to brighten his whole face. "The doctor said you should rest. As long as you need." He sat up, and took her hand in his, fingers warm against her cold skin. Weakly, she smiled at him, and let him hold her hand. It would not do, if she could not keep up appearances.

"How long was I…" Her voice was raspy, and he was attentive, quick to pour her water, the clean water from the well that tasted like stone and iron. He watched her as she drank; she hated how his eyes seemed to always be on her, fixated on her every breath, her every movement.

"It's all right, my dear one. The doctor came and saw you. He said you just need to rest, and not to strain yourself. No more heavy work; we have servants for that. Of course, it's only natural." Emmanuel fluttered over her. "He gave me a list of the foods you should eat, and the medicine…"

"Foods? Medicine? What do you mean?" Azelma pressed her hand over her heart, feeling it thud. Natural? What could be natural about the spirits that walked the earth, restless and starved for human touch. The spirits that his trances called to, like metal filings to a magnet, like lightning to a rod. There could be nothing right with what happened last night.

"Oh, my dear one…it's what we've been praying for so long." And here he pressed her hands to his breast, before kissing the tips of her fingers as though she were too fragile to touch.

"Praying…" Slowly, gradually. The realization began creeping over her like a plague, stealing the breath from her lips.

"My lovely, you're with child. We're going to be parents."

Tears brimmed in his eyes, and once again, she saw blackness.


	2. Chapter 1

**The Woman at the Well ~ Chapter 1**

Azelma leaned against the rail of the ship, and felt the sea breeze on her face. She held the letter clutched in one hand, fingers tight so the wind could not catch it and sweep it away. There were only a few lines written on the page, and she had read them so many times on the voyage over that she knew them now without looking.

_I pray that your passage will be an easy one. I shall be at the dock when you arrive. I will wear a black suit and a yellow cravat. I await your arrival with eagerness._

The handwriting was small and cramped. The lines were shaky in places. It was the writing of an old man, one of the other girls had observed. She, too, had a letter, only hers had been a full two pages, written on gilded paper in a flowing, elegant script.

It was from a young merchant who had travelled to the Colonies to seek his fortune, and indeed had found it. He wrote a little of the house he had bought in Nouvelle Orleans, of the horses in his stable, of his wine cellar, and his holdings in the city. Azelma had heard the contents of the letter read aloud countless times, and she felt she knew the young merchant who had written it intimately by now.

As for the man who had written her own letter, Azelma had only a name, and even that had been difficult to decipher at first. It was tiny and crouched close to the bottom of the page. When she had first seen it, in the dim light of a prison cell, she hadn't been able to read it at all. It wasn't until she was outside, in the sun, that she had been able to make it out.

_Emmanuel_

It was a strange name. It lacked the concrete nature of a Francois or an Alphonse. Those were names that she could hang a face upon. At first, Azelma hadn't tried to imagine the man, but as the journey wore on, as the other girls had become swept up in elaborate tales of the husbands who would be there to meet them when the ship docked, an idea had begun to take shape in her mind.

He was old; she was almost certain of that. The handwriting proved as much. She had no particular aversion to old men, and sometimes she found their waning stamina a great relief. But, she thought, he might also be cruel. His letter was brief; perhaps he was impatient. Perhaps unsparing, or stingy, or stubborn in the way that old men who have had things a certain way their entire lives are.

Perhaps she was to be a second wife, or a third, and she would live out her days with the shadows of those dead women hanging over her head.

In a sudden fit of disgust, Azelma crushed the letter in her hand and threw it away. The wind blew it back, over her left shoulder, and she turned to follow it with her eyes. For a moment, it snagged on the railing of the ship, and then it slipped over the edge and was gone.

Azelma sighed. She felt no better. The letter was just a formality, after all. There was still that pale ridge of land on the horizon, closer now than it had been that morning. It had been some time since Azelma had been on a ship, but she supposed they would dock soon. She craned her neck, looked down over the railing at the churning water, watching it slide beneath the prow, and wondered if it wouldn't be better if she followed the letter over the edge.

There was no real force behind the thought, though. She knew she didn't have the courage for that.

Come evening, when the ship pulled into port, Azelma stayed behind as long as she could. She drew out her farewells to the other girls, and lingered over the wicker casket full of clothes that she had been issued upon leaving France. She remembered how excited she had been when she had first seen them; though they were cheaply made and ill-fitting, they were hers and she had taken pride in them for she felt that she had long since earned them. She tried to feel a little of that old thrill now, as she folded a pair of cotton stockings and slipped them into the casket on top, but found she could not.

When she could tarry no longer, she took her belongings and went up on deck. The young soldier who had been assigned as her escort was impatient, and so Azelma spared only one more glance over her shoulder. She was the last one left. The other girls had promised they would write, but Azelma knew that they would not. They had all come from prison, and on the voyage over that had been enough to bind them into friendship. But now they were leaving to begin very different lives. They would not want to be reminded.

The wooden planks beneath her feet, the wicker handle in her fists, the touch of the soldier's hand on her elbow, all those things seemed real to her. But when she looked out over the docks, they were wrapped in an ambiguous and uncertain fog. Well-wishers, workmen, travelers, sailors, all of them looked as ghosts to her. Bright phantoms that flashed in and out of existence, like small fish darting to the surface of a fountain, and then disappearing once more.

She went down the gangplank as if to her execution.

She had forgotten that the transition back to solid ground could be as difficult as first getting accustomed to living at sea had been. She stumbled with the first step she took onto the dock, and grabbed the railing of the gangplank to stabilize herself. She clung to it for a moment until she had found her balance once more, then ventured forward again. This time, she made it several steps before her knee turned beneath her and her body pitched as if to compensate for waves that were no longer there.

She didn't even have a chance to gasp before an arm was around her waist, steadying her.

"Be careful, Mademoiselle." He drew her upright, setting her on her feet. His voice was gentle, his French tinged with the hard vowels of the Colonies. She looked up at him without meaning to, and found a pale, lean face and a slicked blond hair, smoothed as neatly as a choirboy's. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a neat-tucked waist, dressed, by her Parisian eye, with some amount of provincial sincerity, practical and commonsense. His eyes were gray as underfeathers, and with a line between white and iris that was none to distinct.

"Thank you, Monsieur." Her voice swallowed up as she looked around anxiously. The docks were emptying, and the night grew cold. She could imagine that old man, that lecherous, stingy man, waiting impatiently in a carriage. She could just about smell his musk. If she was lucky, perhaps there was still time to leap into a river…

"It's all right." He looked at her, calmly, without the calculation she was used to, the look in a man's eye that told one that he was busy undressing her, imagining her in her most private of moments. "Might you be Mlle. Azelma?"

"Y-yes. That would be me. I, I had a letter…" She fumbled for it for a moment, before she remembered that she threw it away.

"It's all right. You won't need any letters. I can tell you're the right one. I'm a servant. Come, let me take you home." He glanced past her and gave the soldier a reassuring nod; then he offered Azelma his arm, and dazed, she took it. He picked up her casket with an easy grace, and before they boarded the carriage, he packed it up himself.

The carriage ride was long; it took her through the city of Nouvelle Orleans and out into the wilderness of countryside beyond it. Though she was curious, she was tired and soon slept, her shoulder resting on the plush cushioned interior of the carriage. She woke only once, for a moment, when he reached across the gap between the seats and tucked a bright quilt up around her shoulders.

She lost track of time, but it was dark when they reached the estate, surrounded by a forest of fields of cane and cotton, crops she had heard of only from drunken sailors and adventurers in the new world. The manor blazed merrily with lights, and it seemed that she could just imagine the lecherous old sot pinching her bottom as he showed his new bought bride to his unctuous friends.

The servant came by, and took her hand, helping her out. Africans, with skin so black that for a moment she had thought they were ghosts, visible only by their floating eyes and teeth, their white shirts shining in the night. She nearly screamed until they came close and she saw they were just men, men who took the carriage and team away.

"You must be tired. Here, I'll show you around the house, and then to your apartment. Dinner will be brought to you and you can then rest. Will that be acceptable, mademoiselle?" He was so kind, so polite, that she couldn't help but smile.

"Yes, thank you." Her voice was a bare whisper, as if she had forgotten how to speak.

The house was grand, with fittings that she recognized as coming from France, things she had only seen through the doorways of shops from a distance. The furniture was plain but beautiful, the plainness of simplicity and polished wood, of crushed velvet and bronze fittings. Her rooms were a delight, with a private bath and a wardrobe waiting to be filled with her clothes. Her cotton things seemed small and alone beside the palace of the dresser, but she smiled at herself, admiring her reflection in a tiny mirror set on a desk.

Even now, Azelma was hesitant to think of herself as pretty, ut in the weeks before her departure, she had been rationed fresh meat and white bread in an attempt to chase the specter of hunger from her face. It seemed, too, that the sea air had agreed with her. There was a flush of color in her cheeks, and her hair, which had once lain lank and flat around her face, rippled with a hint of curl.

But nothing had been able to dispel the shadow of misfortune from around her. She could see it still, in the deep divots in her cheeks, the crease in her brow, the wild and darting look in her eyes.

She remembered the man who had introduced himself as a servant. He, too, had a troubled look about him. Maybe it had been why he had looked at her, and he had seemed to understand.

Azelma frowned a little, then happened to glance in the mirror and notice how it deepened the creases around her mouth. She bit her lip reproachfully and forced a smile. Though she hadn't met the master of the house yet, she felt his presence keenly. He could have her sent back if she was not to his liking. No, there was no shortage of unlucky girls in Paris, any number of whom would be sufficient for populating the Colonies.

It would not do, then, for him to see her looking unhappy. And it wouldn't do for her to think too much of that servant, either.

Though, she thought, he had been damply handsome, and she liked his pallor, his stillness. The way he had seemed almost colorless with his straw hair and his gray eyes. She'd spent the journey here trying to dodge the wandering hands of the sailors with only mixed success, and she'd had her fill of virile men for a while.

But it took only a small effort for Azelma to put him from her mind. She had learned early on to develop a light touch in her dealings with men, and to always be prepared to treat them as more disposable than they were willing to treat her. She opened the casket of clothes that the maid had brought in and began the simultaneous tasks of putting its contents away, and forgetting his face entirely.

Once, she had been proud of her little bundle of belongings, issued to her by the prison matron upon the confirmation of her travel date, but now she could see how shabby they looked when laid against the rich mahogany of her dresser or spread out on the heavy quilts that covered the bed. She could tell that they had been made onsite, in the small factory at the jail. The bodices were cut straight across the collarbone, and unflattering on even the most charming of girls; the seams of the stockings bore the telltale stitching of a hand that quivered with hunger.

She had come far, she thought, from shoelessness and rags, but she still had further to go. She felt herself tense, felt her muscles grow steely as if to deflect the trappings of luxury. To sink into them, to become complacent, that would be easy. She knew better; she did not trust this new life yet

Presently, the maid brought up a cold supper. Azelma ate alone, perched on the edge of her chair and straining to hear the heavy tread that was sure to be her husband's footsteps. But there were only the brisk, tapping steps of the house staff as they passed through the halls above her room, and the steps that came down the hall to her room. Those were almost too soft to be heard.

She heard four knocks, so soft that they were hardly knocks at all, and the servant who had brought her to this great house pushed the door open and slipped inside. He turned his lean body sideways, and left a gap only big enough to squeeze through. She wondered if he always crept into rooms like a thief in the house.

That made two of them, Azelma thought.

"How do you find the accommodations?" he asked. He still wore the same suit he had at the dock, but he had exchanged the flowing yellow cravat for a narrow black one. He looked washed out and monochrome; in this light, not even the blond of his hair showed true.

"Beautiful," Azelma said. She had tried out several answers in her head before settling on the simplest. "These things must have cost a fortune."

He bowed and smiled thinly. "The Lord bestoweth His blessings upon the faithful here on earth, but they are nothing compared to the reward that awaits them after death."

Azelma was taken aback.

"Well," she said at last. "I don't know about that."

"You will," he said. "I shall bid you goodnight now, mademoiselle."

He didn't seem angry, but Azelma found herself wondering if she had insulted him somehow. "Wait..."

The man paused and glanced back at her but did not turn. One hand was on the frame; the door still open just a crack, hardly enough to let a cat through. "Yes?"

"Do you think... he'll come tonight? After I'm in bed?"

"He..." The man echoed. His eyes seemed to lose focus.

"My husband," Azelma said. "The one I came here for."

The servant started like a sleepwalker woken in time.

"No," he said. "There hasn't even been a ceremony yet. It would be... ill-advised, I think, for you to meet him before the wedding."

"Can't you at least tell me what he's like?"

His lips twitched and heaved and, as if by great effort, formed into another watery smile. "By and by, you shall know."

* * *

Days passed. Her old clothes were all taken and given to charity, one piece at a time, as new clothes were made, simple but of good cloth, sturdy and practical but with elegant touches. None of the silks and laces of the fashionable shops of Paris, but something more sincere, something plainer and more mature. Something more suitable for a married woman, she thought, as she turned this way and that, looking at the sweep of the skirts.

She had yet to see the master, who it seemed was out on business, far away, but most afternoons, the servant met her in the parlor, and they took tea together in the English style. Though they flung wide all the windows, it was intolerably hot. So hot that Azelma felt stifled, as though she couldn't breathe, and the press of this open air, the open fields and the sky that seemed to go on too, too long made her feel faint, as if the sky could just reach down and crush her.

At night, the world buzzed with the life of animals, of insects and growing things, of frogs and maybe even the calls of a field hand, distant in the night. She had trouble sleeping in the great bed by herself, and bunched piles of bedding around her like a fort, only to have them smoothed out again by the maid.

She grew healthier, she grew sicker. It was a conundrum and eventually she found that she could rest, in the quiet emptiness of a local church, which never seemed to have anyone in it, at least in the afternoons when she asked to go. The walls were thick and close. It was small, it lacked the grandeurs of the manors, and the busy whispering steps of servants. And to her shame, she found herself there regularly, sleeping in the posture of prayer, her neck cricked down, hands clasped together tight.

Drowsily, she woke up to the sound of voices. Hearing her name called out, she stood quickly and wiped her eyes discreetly with a handkerchief, trying to hide her shame.

"Mademoiselle Azelma? I was told I could find you here." The voice seemed strong and young, but the man was not. He limped, his cane tapping on the worn tiled floor, his French sharp and Parisian, sounding so smart to her ears even though her eyes shrank from him. His lank hair hung around his face, gray streaked blond, and his face was terribly scarred. Over his right eye was a black patch, like a mark of condemnation riding his high cheekbones.

"Monsieur?"

"You may call me Brother Apollyon." He bowed, a courtly motion that hinted at good breeding and fine manners, though his voice was like the rasp of a crow, the scratch of a carrion eater. "I am of this covenant, and have been sent by Brother Emmanuel to see to your preparations for marriage."

Azelma's knees felt weak, and she clung to the heavy wooden pew. "Marriage?" It seemed that the thought had slipped from her mind over the course of these weeks, had somehow disappeared from her worries and wonderings. And now it reared up again, a leviathan swimming up and out of dark waters, and for a moment the horror overwhelmed her.

"Brother Emmanuel wanted to see if you were worthy. After all, many poor girls fall into sin, but not all poor girls are sinners." His lips twisted into the parody of a smile and with the deep scars, made his face seem almost grotesque. "Tell me, are you ready to do your duty to God? To do as he has asked us all to do, to be fruitful and multiply?"

"I…Yes. Of course." The lie came quickly to her as she looked for a way to escape. But his bright blue eye pinned her, broke her down like a slave on the wheel, and she could only say yes, could only submit to his will, whatever it may be.

"Then come." His voice lost some of its harshness, and he offered her his gloved hand. "I will be your teacher."


	3. Chapter 2

**The Woman at the Well ~ Chapter 2**

Low, low down in the earth, lay the Valley of Cavalry. Lower than the level of the sea, lower than the river which lay to the east, just beyond a row of low, blunt, black hills. The hills bent back on either side of the Valley, which, if viewed from above by crow-eye, would have given the impression of an ancient mouth full of worn and rotting teeth.

Inside this mouth was the town and collective farm. The manors of the oldest families riding high on the southern hills; below them, the houses of the seasonal workers. Last and deepest were the fields, tucked into the bottom of the Valley like a plug of tobacco into a jaw. Beyond the fields, rising up again on the north hills, was a small row of shops which dealt in perishable goods, in practical clothing, in guns and liquor. These were managed by immigrants of good character, and patronized by the tenant farmers, but each was owned by one of the presiding families.

On that side of the Valley were, too, the small chapels that the field workers were permitted to attend. Not being of the elect, Calvary Chapel was forbidden to them, but the good citizens had, in a gesture of magnanimous goodwill, allowed them to conduct their heretical services, so long as they remained quiet and well mannered, and not so much as a peep of music could be heard.

In the back of the mouth was the tangled gray of the swampcountry, covered by a mangrove canopy and shrouded perpetually in stagnant mist. Few ventured within, and the road that cut through the valley bent sharply before it reached the swamp, and doubled back on itself a little, so as to find a way around.

There had been stories once about the swamp, stories older than the oldest settler of the fledgling township. But those, it seemed, had been lost in the shuffle. The widow Munly, who had taken upon herself the job of town historian, had reduced the history of Cavalry to columns in a ledger: acres of farmed land, acres of fallow; cane prices and rainfall per year. It was a bloodless tale, and folklore and mythmaking were the first excised from it.

But there was one name that hung over all the telling, and that was the name of Brother Emmanuel.

Emmanuel's reputation in Calvary was great, though sometimes it fell prey to the very human tendency towards exaggeration. Even now, within his own lifetime, it had become difficult to separate the truth of the man from the stories. The widow Munly had made a valiant effort to compile a definitive biography of Calvary's enigmatic leader. So far, she had managed only a sketch of only a dozen pages, but each word she swore was the truth, for in the writing she had felt the hand of the Almighty upon her own cold, brittle fingers, guiding her pen.

There had been a motion put forth to keep the manuscript in the church, alongside the Good Book and all the holy articles of the faith. Only Emmanuel himself had dissented, but he was notoriously humble, and so his protests were noted in a quick postscript to the document, but otherwise ignored.

* * *

On the second day of her training, Apollyon brought Azelma to the chapel, and set the manuscript before her. He held it carefully, as if it might crumble in too careless a grip, but Azelma could see that the pages were quite new and had not had the time to grow brittle with age.

"I think you will find this edifying," he said. "As it was written by a woman. What she may lack in form, she makes up for in… enthusiasm. I imagine someday soon you will make her acquaintance; she is a leading member of this community." His hand caressed over the ivory handle of his walking stick, almost uncomfortably, with strange stops and starts of movement. "Read it. If I were to tell you the same, it would be but a poor imitation."

Azelma did not look down at the pages immediately, but she watched his face awhile. It seemed to her that she had grown accustomed to his looks more readily than she had expected. He was ugly, yes, terribly so, and at first his appearance had shocked her. But he wore his scars well, and when he met a citizen on the street he would raise his head – with some effort, considering the way his stooped shoulders were rapidly becoming permanently hunched – and look that goodman or gentlewoman in the eye. By his brazenness, he forced them to see what a lesser man would have tried at all costs to hide.

She could see that his scars disgusted them, and it secretly delighted her. Though they had shared nothing more than a few pleasantries and much dry agricultural information over the course of their brief acquaintance, Azelma secretly thought of the man as her confidant. For he, too, was a Parisian, far from home, indebted much to that strange benefactor named Emmanuel, whom Azelma had not yet seen, but whose presence she felt keenly, growing more oppressive by the hour.

Apollyon smiled patiently. "Can you read, mademoiselle?"

"Me?" Azelma said. She tore her eyes away; she had not meant to stare. "Yes, I can. I'm sorry, I was thinking."

"Take your time."

But he watched her so keenly, that Azelma knew he didn't mean it, and she dropped her eyes to the page. Though she had learned to read in childhood, and indeed she could do so easily, there had been little opportunity for Azelma to maintain her talent in her adult life. Confronted now with the widow Munly's impenetrable, tiny scrawl, her eyes rebelled against the task and the words swam and unfocused and grew jumbled before her. She blinked them back into place, and read,

_Lo did the breath of the Lord blow upon the waters and did cross the Great Water and the waters did dry up in His wake until He come aground upon Heathen shores and there did He fly over Womanly Fields and the People there did quake and all the Livestock roll their Eyes and bolt with Fear and unto the Gates of Babylon did come the Lord to travel all amongst the City streets and amongst the multitude Sinners there did He wind His way, past Adulterer and Thief and Harlot and the makers of Great Idols all of whom were multitude in that wicked land but the Lord saw not them and scattered them before Him like Chaff and paid them no mind and He, in His wisdom and Glory did seek out one Good Man, and that Man had stayed Pure amidst the Filth, though born of woman but bought by Blood and Covenant. And the Lord did Come unto him and Enter in, and the Good Man saw truly with good and wise Eyes, and thus did he became man no more, but Prophet._

Azelma's brow had become deeply furrowed, and her lips pressed into a thin line. She felt a tightness in her throat, like a surge of old emotion, but she knew not from where it came.

Apollyon's hand touched her shoulder. Though it was unexpected, she did not tense beneath it. "Perhaps it is a bit much," he said.

"Is it true?" She stared at his hand for a long moment, slender delicate bones wrapped in smooth skin punctuated by long, rippled scars, and she knew that whatever it had been, it must have been painful. He drew it away when he noticed her looking.

"In its own way." And she thought for a very brief moment that she heard a tone of humor, a sound of sarcasm and wit and something else she could not define, something that she associated with those gentlemen of Paris that went in and out of the salons, their breaths frosty and brandied after a night of drinking and talk.

She remembered how cold it was in Paris in the winter, and her mind's eye followed the memory where it would go, letting it take her away from this place, a blessed moment of inner peace.

"…do think of him as a Prophet, though perhaps the reasons aren't as clear as salvation but more worldly…"

And she lost the thread of his conversation while feeling in the dark for the next thread of memory, the one that would lead her to understand what he was. She stared at his face, trying to puzzle out the pucker of scars, the lines of pain, the scrap of black silk covering one eye, the other brilliantly blue.

"…economic genius, perhaps though far be it for me to say…"

His hand would flex slightly on the paper, when he talked. It was as if he was remembering the motions of writing, of note-taking, perhaps. Had he been a student? The answer to that question was obvious, he held himself with a choir-boy's poise; he spoke with the subdued elegance of the well-educated. Nothing like the servants of Emmanuel's house, nothing like anyone she had met before. Except in Paris.

Paris, Paris, the lost Eden and lost hell all at once. She sighed without meaning to, and he paused in his dissertation.

"Mademoiselle?"

"I'm sorry. I am listening, really, I am." She tried to make her face sincere, tried to put the meaning behind her eyes. "I fear that I grow weary today…" She stumbled through the excuse, knowing it was bad.

"Then you must rest. Tomorrow we begin with Genesis." He smiled, patting her hand awkwardly. "While they want me to start with Revelation, I do believe there's no end without a beginning, somewhere."

She smiled a little; it sounded as if he was trying to make a joke. "Yes, Brother Apollyon, tomorrow." The words dried up in her as her eyes met his, his hand still on hers. She could feel the soft pads of his fingers press lightly on the back of her hand; they weren't worn and rough like anyone she had ever met before. Soldier, sailor, workman, poorman…

Then something in him changed like the changing of the wind, and the light in his eyes grew cold and it seemed he was looking through her.

"You should do well to keep your mind on Emmanuel." He stood, pushing himself up on his walking stick, hand clasped cruelly around the smooth ivory knob. "Tomorrow we begin your religious education, in preparation for him. How they expect me to teach a lifetime's study and meditation in seven days, I do not know."

As he left, with his stagger-footed gait, uneven and clacking on the tile floor, she wondered who he was talking to, her or him.

And then she remembered what he said about seven days.


	4. Chapter 3

**The Woman at the Well ~ Chapter 3**

He cursed and hit the heavy trunk, taking a grim satisfaction at the muffled jangle of glass bottles inside. And when the porters came to take it and stow it on the riverboat, he shouted and cursed them for their lack of care; after all his savings were all tied up in that damn trunk and if one of them was to damage it, so help me god I will sue you good and don't think I won't.

Finally when everything was put in order, Montparnasse sat down and had himself a drink. A stiff, harsh drink that pained him in such a way that he forgot about everything for about ten, fifteen seconds. Of course it came back to him when he stopped, so he had to have another.

He caught his reflection in the wobbling metal behind the counter. A tiny strip of mirror-bright metal added to add a touch of class to this miserable boat, by god it will sink and take us all down with it if he so much as kicked a floorboard.

Lines were beginning to settle on his boyish face. Some bitch had called it distinction; he had made her bleed. He had found silver hairs tangled in the black; he plucked at those. His hairline was receding, giving his face a hollow look and maybe that meant he should eat more steak, but for his wasp-slender waist oh lord, give me balance in kind…

It was this rustic country air, he had decided. Too many days of sun, too many days of brisk clean breezes spiced with flowers and broken clods and swamp and horse shit. It was this disgusting nature that was abnormal; give me the clean smoky skies of Paris, that whore who spread her legs to all the roads of the world, give me the cobbled streets where you could near break a leg in winter crossing the street, give me the shadows of grand old buildings protecting my head from the goddamn wind that wants my hair out.

Damned if he wasn't getting older by the minute, poorer by the hour, a god-damned mule dragging along cases of weak liquor fortified by strong poppy fortified by weak but bitter herbs. A-Raby Brew As Concocted For The Sheik Himself or The King of Siam's Strongest Tribulation For Muscled Men Only or whatever damned thing he felt like putting on the label that week in that town. He skirted that fine line, a real nervous line, of having something people'd recognize and buy, and having something people'd kick him out of town for once they realized it was shit.

And still he did take a craftsman's pride in knowing that he brewed these himself, whenever benighted between towns. It was impressive how far a gallon of whiskey, some cleanish water, and a copper pot could put together in a few hours.

"Patent…fucking…medicine." He drank down another one. It wasn't even good enough to drink on its own. He still had to buy his own whiskey, even though he longed for brandy, for cognac, those drinks of real gentlemen that these country yokels had never tasted, much less imagined.

"…and Lord, how He does guide me! Through the valley, through the shadow, through the-"

"Fine, fine, you quit your hollerin, preacher man, I get you one more and no more begging this is the last free drink-"

Montparnasse's ears perked up at that word. Free. It certainly rang sweetly, like unto the fall of a ten-franc coin or what the hell do they call it here again? Dollar…

"Thank you, and may The Lord bless you in all your days…"

Montparnasse watched the preacher with the sly side of his eye. It was with a grudging admiration that he considered the con folks like that had been running all these centuries. That long game they brought off smoother than any hustle he'd ever seen, and he'd been a gamin grown up in the worst slums of Paris among them thieving gipsies and whores.

Oh god, he'd even start believing in God if he'd have had the luck to be born for the seminary. Oh lord, I'd be a praying man, if You'd answer just this one prayer of mine...

Montparnasse tilted back and swallowed the rest of his whiskey at a go. He felt it slide down, a hot stone traveling toward his stomach. He half-coughed, and slammed the empty glass back on the bar.

Yes, yes, yes, he felt brave now. In anticipation of the surge of courage the whiskey would give him, he got up, heading toward the preacher. A hell of a crowd had gathered in the public room, but the preacher wasn't hard to pick out. In the moment it had taken Montparnasse to gather his thoughts, the man had reduced his most recent beer to a tatting of suds at the bottom of a greasy mug, and he was now swinging the empty glass and singing in a lusty baritone.

_Go and tell that long-tongue liar  
Go and tell that midnight rider  
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back-slider  
Tell him that God's gonna cut him down_

He was laughing when he sang, but when Montparnasse came around him and the preacher's eyes fell on him, he could see that they were hard. He could see that the preacher meant every word. And from the way his eyes took him in at a glance, and then shifted past him, punched right through him like a pair of iron pikes, Montparnasse knew that he had someone specific in mind as the words tumbled from his mouth.

God have mercy on their soul, whichever man or woman that preacher had his hate hell bent set on.

"Good singing, preacher," Montparnasse said. He could still have a French accent when he wanted one, but right now he had almost none.

"Thank you, my son." He paused and wiped at the side of his face with his sleeve, soaked through with sweat. "And how is the Lord bringing his blessings upon you today, my son? Is he bringing you wealth? No!" And Montparnasse felt a smirk run up and down his lips, realizing he was being made into the point of an impromptu sermon. "Is he bringing you women? No! Alky-hol? No! My son…"

And here, he put a conniving arm around Montparnasse's shoulders, giving him a squeeze, the way the serpent must have squozen Eve so many generations ago. He stood up, and it seemed to take forever for his legs to unfold completely. Up close the preacher was a tall man, easily towering over him. An average sized man, maybe even something of a scrawny one, sized up to epic proportion.

He was slightly stooped, slightly weathered, slightly rounded about the shoulders, as if he had slouched for many years before realizing it didn't make him any less intimidating. His dark blue eyes, awash behind round spectacles, saw something beyond this world; his dark blond hair was a frowsy halo upon his head where it was not thinning.

The arm around his shoulders was more yoke than arm now, driving Montparnasse forward into the gathering crowd. He could feel the cords of muscle in the arm against his back, thick as the rigging of a ship. The preacher's strength was Biblical, but he kept it carefully restrained.

"My son. God is bringing his blessings upon you with the Word." And all around, the drunks, the servers, hell, even the few women who were in this hellhole hollered in short whooping bursts as if they were being flogged. Praise the Lord. The Lord be Praised.

"The Word," the preacher intoned, voice clear and brassy, like the call of a trumpet at the charge. "The Word. Will bring you blessings. Will bring the world blessings. And when the Word has come upon you…you will be saved! You wi-ill be saved!"

And suddenly he broke into song again, his voice powerful with exaltation, but his eyes showed nigh but meanness and spite. Like an enduring warning to the unlucky person that had had the misfortune to do this preacher wrong.

_You can run on for a long time  
Run on for a long time  
Run on for a long time  
Sooner or later God'll cut you down  
Sooner or later God'll cut you down_

* * *

The hat passed around and around, and Montparnasse watched it as it filled up with cash money. Pennies, dimes, hell, even a five dollar bill. It made his eyes stretch. By his cross-eyed estimate, man was pulling in more than he made in a month, by god, and getting free drinks to boot that sonofabitch.

Here he was busting his back like a goddamn mule to pull around this trunk while this preacherman had nothing more than a carpet bag and the good book and damned if that bitty thing didn't weight more than a pound three ounces, maybe four.

He didn't even realize he was cursing under his breath in French, in that ugly criminal patois that was his bread and butter and cracked marrow bone until the preacher man stopped in front of him, stopped and stared with hard, blue eyes.

"My son?" The voice was mild but the eyes were not.

"Oh. Nothing." Montparnasse caught himself, ashamed to be caught out in a moment like so much guttersnipe trash. "Just thinkin that sermon of yours. Well, it were good."

The man nodded. He picked out the bills and folded them neatly, tucking them into his waistcoat and Montparnasse followed the movements with the practiced eye of a cut-purse, and watched as he dumped the coins into a small leather bag. "Good, good. The Lord inspires me. They call me the Reverend Slim. You?"

"Montparnasse."

"Long name. You a Frenchman?"

"So they say." He bowed, an aping mockery of courtly manners. "_Enchante_." He rolled the word around his mouth, garbling it so it sounded the way a foreigner would speak French, with hard vowels and flat consonants.

Slim laughed. "Dee-lightful. A man of your stature, why, with a Frenchman's education, a man could do most anything out here. Especially with the ladies, if you get my meaning." He winked at Montparnasse.

"I suppose you're right. Though a Frenchman's education hasn't gotten me far here. What would you recommend, preacher man, for a man who needs to make a change? Maybe your sermon moved me today. Maybe…I've found my Calling." Montparnasse slid his eyes up to the man, and wondered what he thought.

"Well, perhaps you'd like some advice. I know of a place that'll train a preacher right and proper fast, and you'd be done within a year, maybe less with your fancy Frenchman's education. Don't charge a dime neither, and they feed you and put you up, like you were some goddamn prince of the land."

"Yeah? Sounds too good to be true." And he laid on the accent thick, like butter on bread.

Slim chuckled. "Maybe is, maybe not. But I'm powerful thirsty after all that singin." He held out the hat to Montparnasse, now emptied of cash. "Maybe I could use a drink or three."

Montparnasse fished in his trousers until he found a half-dollar. It could have bought him some good times, but he figured it would be an investment, by god, it's like my prayers have been answered from Up High, atop this preacher's balding pate.

He dropped it into the hat, and Slim gave him a calculated look. "Well, well. That'll buy a good number of drinks. I thank you on behalf of myself and them widows and orphans I represent. Now…about that education of yours…" He put a soliciting arm around Montparnasse's shoulders and guided him toward the bar. Their distorted reflections spun and twisted in the warped metal mirror.

The preacher could drink like no one Montparnasse had ever seen. Whiskey, beer, even an odd glass of red wine all disappeared with equal enthusiasm down his great golden throat. How a man could drink like that and have it show neither in an accumulating gut nor in a roughening of his singing voice, Montparnasse could not say, but the preacher seemed to him a man blessed with singularly good fortune.

The sentiment would surely be lost on the preacher himself, who looked at each new drink that came before him not with healthy appreciation but with the tired eyes of a laborer regarding another brick he must lay.

"Son," he said, fixing Montparnasse with a gleaming conspirator's eye. "Only those chosen by God can spread the Word through the wilderness. And, I must be true, I don't see no mark upon your brow. Are you sure you've got the Calling?"

"I hear something calling me, preacher. Clear as a bell. And, if you don't mind me saying, I don't see no mark on you neither. How will I know what it looks like?"

He didn't say anything at first, just watched Montparnasse intently over the rim of his glass, his eyes impossible to read behind the warped glass of his spectacles. He took a swallow of beer before he spoke, and when he spoke it was as if that last drink had washed all the amicable charm away like so much sand from a ford, revealing a bedrock of weariness.

"Let us dispense with the formalities," he said. His brassy accent of no place in particular had disappeared too, replaced with the faint nasal buzz, the twang of a Bostonian for sure. "Shall I call you Montparnasse?"

"Y-yes..." Montparnasse was startled. "That's my name, truly."

"Well, Montparnasse. I know that you're no man of god. And there's no spirit that moves you save the one that comes from a bottle. Why don't you tell me what this is really about?"

It was the kind of forthrightness that only these damned Americans showed, and it tripped Montparnasse up every damned time. "I... I'm ne sure pas… not yet," he stammered. "But by his, uh, grace and, um, mercy..."

"Quit while you're ahead, son. This is about the money, isn't it? Well, I won't lie to you, I make a good piece. I live comfortably. Is that what you want for yourself?"

"It is," Montparnasse said, and he was a little surprised by the conviction in his voice. It was new, and he liked it at once.

It seemed that the preacher did too, for he nodded a little. "Been living hand to mouth for long enough, I suppose? Listen, son, I didn't come from Europe myself. My name goes back all the way to the beginning, and that's nothing to take lightly. But I've known my share of boys like you, and I know that none of you newcomers came strolling over here. No, you came at a dead run, like all the hounds of hell were chasing you. So tell me, or just let me guess. You were poor, your friends were no good. Women were no good to you either. Maybe you'd been in and out of jail..."

"In," Montparnasse said, "And then out. Just once. I got lucky."

"Sounds like it. Prison wouldn't have done anything good for a boy like you."

Montparnasse felt a tightness at his temples. "No, sir. It wouldn't have."

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm a doctor, of a sort. More like a druggist, actually."

"I see," said the preacher. "Peddling crap to bastards just as poor and ignorant as you are. Only maybe they're a whisper less poor or a whisper more ignorant."

Montparnasse felt his temples tightening still, like as if his face was turning slowly into wood. "It's their own damn fault," he hissed. "Always... wanting things. Always believing things can be easier on them. Ain't nothing like that in this world. And by god, they have that goddamn way they talk. I picked it up from them, and now I can't shake it."

"So that's why..." the preacher said. It seemed that he was laughing without really laughing at all. "It almost suits you."

"The speechifyin, it makes them listen and it makes them buy. But it makes me sound stupid," Montparnasse sulked. "It makes me sound so... inelegant. Like I ain't no better than them."

"But you are," the preacher said. "You aren't just going through life breathing up all the air allotted to you until there isn't anymore and you die. You can do both. Breathe and think, can't you? And that's why I think you'll do. Yes, you'll do just fine. Now, son, let's have a drink and settle the matter, shall we?"


	5. Chapter 4

**The Woman at the Well ~ Chapter 4**

Together they rode in silence, their horses taking slow plodding steps. Apollyon rode a gentle old mare, one with a gait so smooth he called her Lethe, her original name long since forgotten. Emmanuel's gelding fretted at the slow pace, but his firm hand kept the horse from bolting.

Sunlight filtered green through the tall cypresses, and a hint of a breeze stirred the leaves but gave no succor. Emmanuel dabbed at the sweat plastering his fine hair against his brow and straightened his straw hat.

He looked over toward the cane fields, frowning a little at the sound of distant song. "Do you recall the young industrialist I've been corresponding with? I believe I told you about his ideas before."

"Yes. M. Pontmercy, wasn't it?" Apollyon rode stiffly, his cane slung over the pommel, the leather reins wrapped around his free hand. He spoke stiffly too, as if the shape of the name was unpleasant to him, a wicked weed of a word that had to be ripped from his throat by the roots.

Emmanuel nodded. "I've convinced him to come and inspect our enterprise. Perhaps he will invest, if it is the good Lord's will. We'll have to have the guest house readied. He'll be coming at the end of spring."

"Good." The word came out like a curse, clipped and bitter. "We could certainly use the capital. We still need to buy a new evaporator building and finish paying off the new mill. And I believe we're close to adding another six hundred twenty three acres of arable, cleared land to the west, and another eight hundred fifty six to the south." Apollyon said, recalling the figures with ease. "It's better than the five hundred twenty we bought the season before last, and less expensive too."

"The Lord works in mysterious ways." Emmanuel smiled, and Apollyon only tightened his grip on the pommel and his cane.

"I have new business as well, Emmanuel. The permanent laborers have elected a new foreman. I trust the man to be a good shepherd of men." Apollyon could almost hear the song clearly now, and wondered at the words, a blur of sound. "Franklin Hendrikson. He's a Swede, or at the least the civilized part of him is. Educated enough to do the figures and honest enough to be trusted. I propose we accept and promote him."

"Done. Next order of business?" Emmanuel swatted at a fly.

"Well. There is the matter of your marriage."

"All provisioned for. I've already requisitioned the necessaries. How is the girl's education coming?"

"She is…" Apollyon paused, choosing his words carefully. "An eager student. But perhaps not eager enough. It will take longer than expected, but she'll have the core of the doctrine by the time you wed. Shockingly ignorant, but with a good enough heart, once one puzzles past the layers of girlish nonsense.'

"Then the Lord guided me rightly." Emmanuel smiled, and beneath him his gelding pulled at the reins, fretting at the slow pace. He leaned in to the next surge, as if stroking the horse's flank with his knees. "He doth provide."

"So He does." Apollyon's eyes were distant. "There is also the question of attendants. Witnesses we have enough, but a woman needs womanly hands to anoint and prepare her."

"So ask the widow Munly. She's always wanting to take part in these things," Emmanuel waved an absent hand, his gaze far away.

Apollyon frowned. "Are you sure that's a good idea? She cuts a rather…grim figure for a joyous day."

"She's a pious soul. What need has a woman of earthly finery? The costliest gold is but tarnished brass compared to the treasures that await up in Heaven. Besides, she's the only one without children to mind. She'll do it." Emmanuel nodded, pleased with his idea. "I'll ask her myself."

"Perhaps…" And Apollyon's breath caught short, and his hand pressed against his head.

"Brother?" Emmanuel drew his gelding close, so close their knees brushed against each other. Even beneath the shade of the straw hat, he could see the cold sweat and pallor of Apollyon's face. "Are you all right? Have we been going too fast for you?" He touched the side of Apollyon's face, his cool hand a balm. "It's too much sun, isn't it? Let's call off the meeting until later, Apollyon. I'll ride ahead and tell them-"

"No." Apollyon mopped his face with a handkerchief. "No, I'm fine. This body of mine…needs to remember who the master is."

"I admire your strength, Brother. And I am glad to indulge your foolish stubbornness, so long as you will permit me my foolish concern."

Apollyon started to reply, but before he could a new song broke out in the cane fields, as sudden as a scuffle between drunks. And like those who witness the beginning of such a fight, Apollyon and Emmanuel were struck dumb and paralyzed as a great roaring bass voice rent the Valley, striding over the hills like a Titan.

Emmanuel's eyes were lowered, as if in prayer. But when he spoke, he sounded winded, as if the song had blown trough his chest and torn the breath from him. "We shall indulge them, too," he said, his voice a rasp. "Lambs…"

And then it seemed he could say no more. He made a slight gesture with his head, and they rode on.

On and on, the laborer sang, crude and common and sentimental:

_Well captain said to John Henry  
"What is that storm I hear?"  
John Henry said, "That ain't no storm captain  
That's just my hammer in the air, Lord, Lord  
That's just my hammer in the air"_

A knot of men had gathered on the porch of one of the tenant houses, sipping glasses of sun tea. They were barefoot, dressed in hickory cloth shirts and overalls and battered straw hats, creased from the swatting of many mosquitoes. A girl was sweeping around them, watching their feet carefully and darting the broom in as soon as one was lifted.

It was the fallow season now, and as such there were only a handful of families in the bottom of the Valley. Even the shopkeepers had taken to spending their summers in Nouvelle Orleans. They left the keys and the logbooks with the foreman, who had the authority to conduct business in their absence. However, fresh food did not keep, and the permanent workers would often go long weeks with nothing but corn pone and dried beans, until a wealthy matron atop the hill remembered them and sent a package of salt pork and okra down into the valley.

But they were all strapping lads, and hard weathered women. There had never been any complaints; at least, none that had reached Emmanuel's ears.

One by one, the workmen became aware of Apollyon and Emmanuel's approach, though it seemed of little interest to them. They did not raise their eyes, and the singer with the imposing voice continued through endless verses. He attacked the song like a starving man would a plate of marrow bones, flinging each aside and falling eagerly onto the next, his hunger never seeming to abate, and his voice never growing weak.

He raised his hand in acknowledgment when Apollyon and Emmanuel drew near, surely knew them at a glance, but was slow to rise to meet them. He finished the verse he was singing, and when he stopped the Valley seemed to ring with the silence his voice had left behind. He wiped his dirty hands on his denim pants, and stood up: a barrel-chested man, with arms like slabs and fists like hammers. His hair was black, and hung down to his collar in waves. He wore a beard – heavy but neat – and sideburns that grazed his high cheekbones at sharp right angles.

"Brother Emmanuel," Apollyon said. "May I present the new foreman, Franklin Hendrikson."

Hendrikson whistled low. "Well, well. The big shepherd himself has come to oversee his flock. Or maybe you just wanted to check up on us?"

"Not at all." Emmanuel spoke too hastily, as if he were the worker, defending himself against an unsparing boss. "As you can see, the Lord has given us much, and I try to govern my operation according to Christian principles. God does not differentiate between master and slave, rich man or poor. Frenchman or… Brother Apollyon tells me you are a Swede, are you not?

"Half," Hendrikson replied, fixing Emmanuel with a shrewd look.

"Half." Emmanuel nodded, twisting the rein tight in his hand and turning his restive horse to keep it from wandering off. "What's the other half then, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Excuse me? I didn't quite hear you there- Oh yes." Hendrikson nodded, a look of understanding coming over him. "The other half is Cree." He didn't smile, but his eyes twinkled with amusement as they searched Emmanuel's for a reaction.

"Cree…You mean…" Emmanuel turned swiftly to Apollyon. "_Un peau-rouge_!"

Apollyon nodded, still rubbing at his temples.

"_Oui, Monsieur_. _Je voux comprends_. I'm a redskin. Well, half." Hendrikson's French was awkward with the strange pronunciations of the Arcadians, but it was enough to leave Emmanuel embarrassed to be caught out.

"Well, I'm glad you speak French, M. Hendrikson. And we're looking forward to working with you…" Emmanuel began the opening volley of a retreat, but Hendrikson outflanked him before he could turn his horse.

"Sir, as the new foreman, I have some requests and new business from the workers to discuss with you. Is this a good time, or must I bring the petition to your home?" Hendrikson's voice was mild, but his eyes sparked with determination.

Emmanuel nodded, hamstrung by his politeness, unable to gracefully retreat without losing face. "Yes, please. I will take and review your…the workers' requests."

"Well. I have the list here." Hendrikson dragged a piece of much-folded paper from his pocket, and held it up. But before Emmanuel could come to retrieve it, he began to talk.

"I have the list here for you, but I have most of the major points memorized. Point the first; the permanent laborers should be allotted small plots to grow and raise their own vegetables and livestock as fresh meat and produce is unavailable through most of the year. Point the second; wages of said workers should increase with the increasing price of dry goods and rent. Point the third; rent for said workers should be decreased to a minimum to ensure the future growth of families; point the fourth, either new tools should be purchased for the care and maintenance of the farm machinery, or a full-time blacksmith should be hired for the sole purpose of maintaining basic tools. Point the fifth, the shifts during the grinding season are fourteen hours long. These must be shortened in order to protect the health and safety of the hands in the mill. As my figures show, accidents and injuries caused by tired or inattentive workers result in a profit loss of…"

"I think, I think that's enough-"

"Oh, well, of course. You can read the rest yourself. There's another five or six points in there that you need to consider. Anyhow, we all better get back to work. Training a new team on clearing land. Oh, and I've got two teams up on the evaporator building, putting on a new roof."

"Was…is…the cost? Was it sanctioned?"

"Not officially, but I don't see how you could profit from it blowing off in the first hurricane. Well, I'll let you men get back to your business, and I'll get back to mine. Come on boys." He motioned to his crew and they set off, and his voice rang out again, booming through the fields.

_Now John Henry, he hammered in the mountains  
His hammer was striking fire  
But he worked so hard, he broke his heart  
John Henry laid his hammer and died, Lord, Lord  
John Henry laid down his hammer and died_

Emmanuel turned with a skeptical look, and Apollyon answered as if he had spoken aloud. "He may seem a bit coarse, but the workers adore him. I know well how important it is to have the approval of the common people…"

"He's so vulgar, though," Emmanuel murmured. Hendrikson's presence seemed to have actually hurt him, like a rough bit of wool dragged across delicate skin.

"He's not like us, that's for certain."

"And these demands! They're preposterous. I've never… never heard any such complaints in all my years here. Are we not good shepherds, Brother Apollyon? Are we not just…?"

His voice broke on the last word, and Emmanuel was shaken by a bout of coughing. His horse made a few dancing steps, startled by the sudden noise, and Emmanuel gripped the reigns tight in one hand. He brought the other to his throat, cradling it as he would a broken limb.

Apollyon touched his shoulder to steady him, but otherwise did nothing. He waited, accustomed by now to such spells and certain this one too would pass.

"Easy, my friend," he said once Emmanuel had calmed some. "You must not betray your most excellent nature."

Emmanuel nodded, but did not attempt to speak.

"Does it hurt?" Apollyon asked.

"It wanes." Emmanuel's voice was a bruised whisper, and Apollyon had to lean close to hear him, the straw brims of their hats brushing against each other with a scratchy sigh. "I was hasty in judgment. God forgive me. I will give these grievances the full attention they deserve."

He moved to unfold the paper in his hand, but at that moment he was racked by another sharp pain, and he pressed his hand again to his throat.

"In good time," Apollyon said, pressing Emmanuel's hand lightly, staying it.

"Yes." Emmanuel drew a deep breath, as if steeling himself for some great effort. Then he smiled. "We make quite a pair, my friend." Their eyes met, warm.

"Two old soldiers," Apollyon said. "Dragging ourselves home after a great war."


	6. Chapter 5

**The Woman at the Well ~ Chapter 5**

Tap, tap, tap. The sound of Apollyon's cane was a constant clicking tempo as she opened the Bible. He moved around to keep his leg from stiffening, to keep his back as straight as it would go, bent from a burden's weight.

"We continue today with Job." Apollyon's voice seemed to come from somewhere beyond her, somewhere distant and untouchable. "Do not think that your education will end with your marriage. Consider this only the beginning of the doctrine." His voice moved away, and she stared at the bible, eyes blurring from fatigue. She forgot how long it had been since she last slept through the night; all she could think of was the upcoming marriage. Of the stranger that she would soon be bound to, by law, by man, by god.

A few days ago, she had been fitted for the dress. It hung in a closet, untouched, virginal and pure, beautiful but plain, trimmed only with the barest minimum of lace. It was like everything else here, sturdy and practical. White lace gloves, a veiled bonnet… everything was ready, and yet she had still not seen the groom.

"Azelma." His voice was like the crack of a whip, and she sat up straight, remembering where she was. Remembering who she was with. She cringed when his bright blue eye moved over her.

"Please continue reading from where we left off."

Hastily, she cleared her throat and stumbled through the verse, her reading slow and halting:

_Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been…_

She paused for a long moment as the words sunk into her, like rain into parched soil. The tap of the cane came nearer, and stopped at her side.

"Continue."

"_I had not been….I should have been carried from the womb to the grave_." A strange feeling went through her, and she felt her stomach knotting, her eyes blurring. "_Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone_…"

A tear slipped from her cheek before she could blink it back and it splashed onto the page. He pulled away the bible, so that her tears would not stain the delicate paper. He dabbed at the water-dotted page with his fingertip before closing the book and setting it aside.

"Azelma." And she looked up, surprised at the gentleness in his voice. He pulled a heavy chair close, the feet scraping the floor with a rasping moan, and sat down beside her. Leaning his cane against the table between them, he took her hand, patting it tenderly. "Azelma."

"I'm fine." Angrily, she wiped at her tears with her free hand, and he gave her his handkerchief.

She raised it to dab at her eyes, but it smelled like camphor and bitter herbs, the smell of medicine and sickness. She handed it back to him, and he put it away with an unreadable expression.

"Do you mourn for your past, Azelma? Or is it something else." His hand was warm and strong, and that surprised her, and then her fingers gripped his, as tightly as she could, as though she was drowning, clinging to a rock.

"I don't know. I can't say." She stared at the plain wood of the table, glaring at it as if it was the reason for her weakness.

"It's about the marriage, isn't it?" His blue eye searched hers, and there was a pause as her eyes met his, and it seemed that something between them snapped clean through.

"I don't even know the man I'm supposed to…to…and I know I should be grateful. I could have died. I could be on the streets in Paris doing…god knows what. And…instead I'm here and it's too good for me and I'm not good enough and I don't even know who he is. What if he's horrible? What if he…what if he hurts me-"

"Shhh." His voice was gentle, and he brushed a stray tear from her cheek. "It's all right, Azelma. He's closer than you think."

"Yes, Brother Apollyon, you say that about God all the time."

"I don't mean him, I mean Emmanuel." Apollyon stared at the droplet of water on his index finger for a moment before flicking it away. "Can you keep a secret? Will…you at least pretend to be surprised? He didn't want me to tell you, but I can see that it has troubled you. You poor child…I told him he should have said something, but he is stubborn." He sighed. "I've seen you wasting these last few days; the shadows under your eyes only grow, while your cheeks have grown hollow. If I tell you, will you promise me that you'll sleep soundly? That you'll take your meals properly and that you'll rest without troubled dreams?"

"I…don't know what I'm promising." She looked at him, as a thirsty man looks to water in a desert. "But I'll promise anything if it'll make the bad dreams go away."

"He's not a bad man. In fact. You've already met him."

"You…? It's not you, is it?" Azelma gasped, clutching her hands to her breast.

"No." He chuckled, and then swallowed the laughter when he saw the look of relief in her eyes. He looked away, hand wrapping around his cane. "It's not me. But you spend almost every day with him already. He wanted to know what kind of woman you were before he made a decision. He has been calling himself a servant. He is God's servant, after all. It was never an outright lie."

"That's…Emmanuel?" And her thoughts quickly flashed back, the steadying arm as she stepped off the ship, the man who showed her the great house, the man who took her around in the carriage and introduced her to all the notables and potentates of the valley, the one who brought her into the church to meet Apollyon…

"Yes. He did not want you to see him only for his beauty and wealth as many women before you have. He wanted to see the true person you were, by posing as the humblest of men."

Azelma felt, at first, nothing save a tremendous flood of relief. Genteel, mannered, soft-spoken Emmanuel; he was all things she had never known in a man before, but she knew she did not love him. Azelma had been in love before, and always the feeling was one of agony.

Where was that sweet pain now? That raging fire that could purify even the most inconsequential of men, melt them down before her eyes and reforge them as heroes or gods or princes? Emmanuel was still just Emmanuel: a smart match, a lucky catch for any woman, but that was all.

Azelma looked up into Brother Apollyon's face, knowing that he was reading the truth in her expression and boldly letting him. His own eyes were cold, shuttered; they betrayed nothing, and Azelma let her gaze rove over the twisted pathways of his scars, as if she might find the truth of his intentions there instead.

"He lied to me," she said.

"No. He only withheld the truth. This land is not like Paris. To survive it one must be able to endure great uncertainty, and anticipate all manner of misfortune. He had to be sure. He did not send for a bride in order to lead her into madness or death."

"I would never have…"

"Such things have happened," Apollyon said. "He had your best interests at heart."

Azelma pursed her lips and said stiffly, "If that is true, then he has been the first."

"You don't sound as if that pleases you."

"I don't know yet," Azelma admitted. "I've been alone for so long now, since my sister died. After that, my father carried me around like you might carry a bundle of possessions, and eventually, like a possession, he misplaced me. I took care of myself then, and I was good at it. I don't know why I'm saying this to you now. I've never told anyone before."

"I don't mind."

Azelma felt a slight pressure on her hand. When she looked down, she was surprised to see Apollyon pressing it in his own.

"I didn't say it because I wanted your pity," Azelma murmured. She knew she ought to withdraw from his grip, but she seemed to lack any strength to do so. His hand was as heavy as death on hers.

"I suppose you don't accept pity from anyone."

Azelma did not answer. She flexed her hand in Apollyon's grip, arching her knuckles so that they fit into the hollow of his palm. They seemed to align perfectly.

"When I first saw him," she said at last. "I wanted him almost at once."

"Wanted him?"

"Yes. I mean, I wanted to go to bed with him. Just for a night. I wanted to know if his he was rough or gentle. I wanted to see him lose his composure. I wanted that power over him…"

"Do you still?" Apollyon asked. She knew that he was no longer questioning her as teacher and student, and so she allowed herself to be honest. She had never quite learned the evasiveness of a well-bred girl.

"No," she replied. "It was a passing fancy. I have urges like that often, and if I don't act on them quickly they go away. I suppose you're going to tell me it's a sin."

"I am not," Apollyon said. "Mademoiselle, I am a naive man. I did not always look like this. Once, they told me I was handsome, but I squandered that. I scourged my body and its desires, and I am in no position now to pass judgment on matters of the heart."

"The heart hardly entered into it. It was lust, pure and simple." Azelma knew that he had been kind enough to offer her a graceful way out of the conversation, but she had deliberately not taken it. She was trying to shock him, she thought, this dusty and faded bloom. She felt he was on the verge of seeing him as he had once been, and she found that wanted that very badly.

But Apollyon only smiled, gorgon-like, gentle, not at all unkind. "Perhaps I misspoke, then. I shall take more care in the future."

He patted her hand and seemed about to withdraw, but suddenly Azelma twisted and seized upon his wrist. For an instant, shock registered on Apollyon's face, but he did not attempt to disengage from her grip.

"Don't tell him what I said," she entreated. "Maybe you think it will make things better if he know, but it won't. I'd be embarrassed. Ashamed. He knows I'm no virgin, but—"

"Why do you say that?" Apollyon said.

Azelma glanced up at him, thinking that he had not been exaggerating when he said that he was naive. She felt a moment's contempt for him and his precious innocence, but it was gone just as quickly.

"He knows," she said firmly. "People know."

"All right," Apollyon conceded gently. "I will say nothing. Think of me as your confessor as well as your spiritual guide. You may say what you like to me."

Azelma let out her breath in a sigh. She realized she was still holding Apollyon's wrist, and she let it go, smoothing the cuff of his coat with a delicate touch.

"Thank you," she said. "Since I got here, you're the first person – the only person – I can talk to like this."

Apollyon withdrew a step, taking up his cane and letting it lead his way. With his free hand, he placed the Bible back upon the table. "Of course, one may always pray."

Azelma looked at him curiously, thinking that she had detected a note of dry humor in his voice, a hint of sophisticated heresy. She quickly dismissed it as her imagination.


	7. Chapter 6

**The Woman at the Well ~ Chapter 6**

The next day, Azelma awoke to a summons from the Widow Munly. The note bid her come at once, and Azelma was a bit irritated that she would miss the beginning of her daily lesson with Brother Apollyon.

However, even now, she knew so few people in Calvary and she was eager to make a good impression on one of the Valley's leading citizens. Emmanuel and Apollyon had both spoken highly of the Widow Munly, but, as Azelma stood before her wardrobe, trying to select something appropriate to wear to the interview, it occurred to her that she could not think of a single concrete word of praise uttered by either of them.

That the Widow was independently wealthy, and that she was a woman of letters. That was all Azelma knew.

Azelma settled at last on a wine-colored silk frock. It was unseasonably heavy, but it was more somber than her pale blue and yellow summer gowns. She wished to impress upon the Widow that she was a serious girl, or at least a girl prepared to take her responsibilities seriously.

The maid helped her dress, and to pile her dark hair atop her head with an ingenious series of hidden pins. Azelma had learned quickly that the half-undone style of Paris was not tolerated in Calvary Valley. Women wore their hair bound up in tight knots at the backs of their heads, letting it down only in the privacy of their boudoirs.

Azelma wrote a note to Brother Apollyon apologizing for her absence. She agonized over it for what seemed a long time. After the strange events of the day before, she did not want to appear too forward with him. Nor did she want to be too aloof. No, he must know that she was grateful…

When at last she was satisfied, Azelma tied first a silk scarf and then a straw hat to her head to keep any stray locks of hair from showing themselves, and then she went out to her appointment.

The Widow Munly's house was at the end of the row of large mansions nearest to the swamp. It was set back a little from the dirt road that formed the main thoroughfare, so that Azelma had to ascend a winding and weed-choked gravel path to the front porch.

Shown in by a thin and harried looking maid, Azelma was briefly blinded by the darkness of the rooms. Every shade was drawn, and the bare light coming through was tinted pink from the curtains. It smelled like varnish, a harsh chemical scent mixed with the scents of ink and dust. It immediately made her long for the whitewash-and-wallpaper clarity of Emmanuel's house or even the bare pine tar scent of the chapel.

The Widow was waiting for her in the parlor. She wore a dress of black silk, cut without any hint of curves, like a nun's habit. On her head was a wide-brimmed black hat with a long veil draped over front and back.

Azelma could not see her eyes, but she knew that they glared at her.

"I suppose you'll want me to draw the curtains and spoil my writings," the Widow Munly said. "Well, I can assure you that it won't happen." She lit a lantern, and the light yawned and swung, sending strange shadows across the room, giving Azelma glimpses of naked walls painted red, the floorboards painted red, furniture covered in red cloths, all bare-boned and minimalist and splattered with tiny droplets of ink as though she wrote where she pleased without regard to her surroundings.

"Undress. And put this on." The Widow's maid brought out a mannequin body, its cloth frame stained and greasy from years of touching hands. Azelma recognized her wedding gown draped over the form: the pure white skirts, filigreed with the barest amount of lace, not enough to suggest opulence, but just enough to shy from monkish austerity.

Hesitantly, she reached for the dress, but the Widow slapped her hand away. "No, take off those filthy clothes first, you vile thing." Azelma rubbed her hand shakily, trying to catch a glimpse of the Widow's eyes behind her dark veil, wondering at her intentions.

She undressed, fumbling at the buttons and soon the Widow stepped forward, undoing the stays and ties of her dress with motions of anger, as if she would defile Azelma through the form of her dress.

"You're young." Her eyes moved over Azelma covetously, her cold hands pausing at her corseted waist and pressing at the bottom cups that held her breasts. "Still firm and pretty. Just like a man wants." Azelma flinched, but the Widow drew her close, so close they were pressed together and Azelma could see the fire burn in her colorless eyes and the curling locks of red hair pushing to escape from the edges of her bonnet. Beneath her shapeless dress, the Widow was bone-thin, like so many bundles of sticks secured with twine. "Any man would want a whore that...if she looked like you."

She caught Azelma's chin, and turned it, side to side. "Not a mark on your face. Well, you got lucky, didn't you? Didn't catch no pox to kill you nor make a man wither. Didn't have to do nothing that messed up your pretty face."

Azelma forced herself calm, thinking that once upon a time, there had been worse than this miserable old witch. And as if seeing the thought in her eyes, the Widow let her go with a sound if disgust.

"Put this on." With great care, she gently dressed Azelma as if dressing a doll, careful not to distress the smooth folds. "We wouldn't have to do this, save that you can't seem to keep an ounce of meat on your bones. I've been watching you, girl. Watching the flesh drop off, like you're pining away for those brothels and drinking dens."

Each step the Widow Munly took made the floorboards creak. She moved busily around her little parlor, and every time Azelma heard those creaking steps, she winced a little inside, tensed, waiting for the inevitable pinch of bony fingers and the prick of the sharp needle as she fitted Azelma for the dress.

"Unworthy...unworthy." The woman muttered to herself, as if Azelma couldn't hear. But Azelma kept her eyes downcast and her mouth shut tight. She dug her fingers into the folds of her soft cotton handkerchief as the Widow jabbed her with a pin, drawing a spot of blood against the pure white folds of her wedding gown.

"Likely the only blood he'll see from you," the Widow said, and Azelma's head snapped up. She looked the Widow Munly in the face, and for a moment it seemed that her eyes churned with some secret pain. They hardened almost at once, as soon as she became aware that Azelma had noticed. Azelma was not sure what she had seen, but she knew that the Widow Munly would not easily forgive her for it.

"That's a bold little hussy," she muttered. "Lo, the Revelator did reveal unto the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. To them he said, look and see. And behold, Babylon, the Beast's great whore, drunk upon the filth of her adulteries…"

Azelma twisted the dainty handkerchief in her hands, hearing the seams pop and unravel. She remembered what Brother Apollyon had told her: that Emmanuel wished her to endure all manner of misfortunes, and she wondered if this was not another of his tests of her character. She bit her tongue and tried to keep silent for his sake, for the sake of the wedding. But when she pressed her eyes shut, it was not her comfortable room in Emmanuel's mansion, nor her new clothes, nor her small comforts and securities that she saw. It was Brother Apollyon's scarred and branded face that appeared before her.

She knew then that this meeting had not been arranged. Whatever malice the Widow Munly bore her, she bore it alone.

She ground her lip between her teeth, biting back all the guttersnipe slang, all the nasty slurs, all the horrible things she wanted to say to her, to make this bony wretch of a woman know that hussy or whore wasn't the worst thing a woman could be called. She felt her heart pound and her blood race, thinking of a time when she would have stood up and slapped this petty tyrant until she hit the floor, and then she'd go to work with her heavy wooden shoes until her face was a bloody pulp. Plots of revenge and fantasies of her old self, the Azelma from the streets who was afraid of no one but the gendarme and even then they were easy to fool with a little fooling around, and then just at that moment the Widow pinched her, pinched her so hard that she bit down hard on her lip, drawing blood.

Immediately she brought her handkerchief to her mouth to staunch the flow. The Widow glared at her. "Clumsy slut, don't chew on your lip like some gamin ragamuffin."

She went back to work, and after a few quiet minutes, Azelma relaxed a little. The worst was over. She could just bear the rest and go back to Emmanuel's big house.

The Widow paused, tugged at the dress, smoothing it out, her head tilting slightly. "So beautiful and pure. Like an angel."

"I thought...you called me a hu-hussy." Azelma couldn't resist, the words muffled by her handkerchief.

"I didn't mean you, Babylon the Great. I meant Emmanuel." And she sighed, a motion that made her whole body quiver and quake from top to bottom, as if the sigh was a wind that moved through her like the holy ghost that Brother Apollyon was always telling her about.

"Emmanuel?"

"Yes, he is the most pure, the highest of all men on this earth, the greatest..." And then suddenly she paused, as if realizing she had let slip some great secret. "It's not for you to know, you miserable wench. Now take this off before you get it dirty like everything else."

The Widow began to pack things up, putting away needles and thread and a tiny pair of silver scissors with a vengeance, as if she secretly wanted to break these things. "I've done all I can with what I've got. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, but as the Lord is my witness I have done all I can in His name and by His holy justice, no matter how unjust it is. I'll send in the maid to help you dress."

And with that she was gone, slamming doors between them as if to create a greater and greater distance, protecting herself from Azelma.

* * *

Azelma walked back on shaky, fatigued legs, escorted by a thoughtful Brother Apollyon who had stopped by to escort her home. She kept turning the Widow Munly's words over in her head, as if she could not leave them alone. She had never heard anyone talk about a living person the way the Widow had talked about Emmanuel…

"Are you well?" Brother Apollyon asked, his voice so quiet and unobtrusive that Azelma could almost have ignored him entirely. "You seem a bit out of sorts today."

"I'm fine," Azelma replied.

"Perhaps you are tired. Have you been sleeping badly?"

"I said, I'm fine. There's nothing wrong."

Apollyon frowned. His expression did not seem to change at all; only his scars shifted, drawing downward. "Did the Widow Munly say something to you?"

Azelma paused. She chanced a glance up at his face, a darting slanting look from beneath her lashes and the brim of her hat. "What makes you think that?"

"She does not hesitate to speak her mind. I have found it to be a rare quality amongst women. Brother Emmanuel encourages her. He gives great weight to her opinion."

"Does Emmanuel like… outspoken women?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Apollyon said. "He has read the testaments of the Middle Ages. In those days, women were commonly chosen as vessels for divine revelation. Are you familiar with the phenomenon?"

Azelma shook her head. "Not really."

"Throughout all the accounts from all the countries of Europe, female mystics appear with far more frequency than their male counterparts. I am speaking of women who received visitations from spirits and saints. Visions, if you prefer."

"You mean like Jeanne d'Arc."

"Something like her, yes. But Jeanne d'Arc was unique in that she was given an Earthly mission and the Heavenly means to accomplish it. More commonly, these women were merely witnesses for the divine mysteries."

"Are you telling me that the Widow Munly can see ghosts?"

"I'm not sure," Apollyon said. "She is a woman of many secrets. However, she has been touched by the hand of the divine. That much is beyond dispute."

Here, Apollyon paused. He pressed a hand absently to his bad leg and a great distance opened up behind his eyes, as if he had turned his vision inward and was know looking into the darkness within. Azelma did not imagine that he might be in pain until he said, "Pardon me, I must rest a moment. Go on ahead if you like. I won't detain you."

"No." She bit back her first thought, which was to tell him she didn't want to be alone. Glancing around, she saw what she was looking for, and she pointed at the creaking pine bench under the shade of a tall tree left thoughtfully for such purposes, as if the people who had put this little community together had thought of Brother Apollyon in advance, thinking that perhaps he would need places to rest his crippled leg. "Let's sit for a moment, Brother Apollyon. I could use the rest."

The deep shade buzzed with the calls of cicadas, and when one dropped on Azelma's hat, she plucked it off without a thought and gave it a little toss. It disappeared amongst the wilting stems of tall grass and tangled stems of clover, hopping off with barely a pause.

They sat quietly for a long time, long enough for the shadows to move. And then Apollyon shifted his bad leg with his hands, straightening it, bending it, and then leaving it where it was, like an unloved child.

"It was some years ago - I'm not saying this to excuse her, but it was some years ago when we founded this place."

The harshness in his voice seemed to smooth away as he talked, as if perhaps an affectation. Azelma dared a glance at him, and he was looking far to the distance, his one blue eye cool and thoughtful. She kept quiet, afraid to break the spell.

"In the beginning, it was just Emmanuel and I. We were going to build ourselves a beautiful place. A perfect place founded on social justice and temperance, on the love of god and man. So we came over the ocean together. We left from Marseilles. It wasn't close to where we had started but the south was good to us both. The weather was good for his condition and as for mine...the heat keeps the pain away."

Azelma stared at their hands, so close together resting on their laps. The distance was so small and yet so vast as to be an insurmountable gulf.

"Emmanuel dreamt it and I knew from the moment he confided in me that I could dream again. So we spent all our money coming here. Then we wandered. Of course none of us had much practical experience, only a theory that we were eager to try out." He chuckled. "But soon enough, she found us and took us in under her wing.

"In those days... You know, she used to be the wealthiest widow in Boston. She had a salon, but it only saw the most religious of men, the most virtuous of the virtuous. Soon we were invited. She had gotten hold of one of Emmanuel's pamphlets. Those days he hand-wrote each one. He hadn't the money for the printer. We could barely afford the paper and ink. We lived like church mice, nibbling on crumbs and the clapboard walls of our cheap lodging."

Azelma smiled at the image, and hid it quickly behind a gloved hand. But fortunate for her, Brother Apollyon hadn't noticed.

"Quickly, our fortunes were reversed." Apollyon sighed, wistful. "Perhaps things would have been better had we not met the Widow Munly. But when Emmanuel told her of his dream, she immediately became as enflamed as I had been with the thought of this city upon a hill, a shining beacon for all the world. Emmanuel is truly a man who can stoke the fires of action in others. Would that… I could have been such a man myself."

His mouth moved in a bitter twist. "Her money paved the way for all this. She brought in investors. She has connections. Don't let her demeanor fool you; the shrew is as good at finance as she is bad at writing. Emmanuel and I... we owe her the greatest of debts for making this place possible. This dream come to life." He said it bitterly, as if choking on the words, spitting them out before they poisoned him. He spoke like schoolboy reciting a tired lesson for a harsh schoolmaster. "And for these last several years, I have lived in an Eden regained. And every day we pay for it a little at a time, in more ways than you could understand, my child."

Azelma said nothing for a long time. She was mulling over Apollyon's words, and she needed quiet so that she could think. It seemed to her that the only part that made any sense was when he had said that he and Emmanuel had come over from France. Her suspicions were confirmed; there was nothing about him that seemed native to this place.

She looked up at him, as if she might suddenly recognize his face, but she knew that she would not.

"Why tell me these things now?" she said.

"I don't know," Apollyon said. "Perhaps it is too much to hope for that you understand it all… but I want you to know what you're getting into. Brother Emmanuel is a good man, but he suffers. He has lost much."

"He's not the one who is scarred."

Apollyon flinched. Azelma knew it had been the wrong thing to say to him. She had known it even before she spoke, but she had let the words come anyway, cast them at him like nettles to scourge his flesh. She had wanted him to feel her presence there, as keenly as she felt his.

After a while, when it seemed like Apollyon was not going to respond, Azelma stood up. She smoothed her skirt and straightened her hat on her head. "I ought to go. He may be waiting at home for me."

She did not dare glance at Apollyon's face, but when she went off and left him there she counted the seconds between her steps. She did not want it to seem that she was running away.


	8. Chapter 7

**The Woman at the Well ~ Chapter 7**

Fat lot of good that last case of patent medicine did, bought them a mule and no cart, and spavined too, no good for nothing but glue and bristles and maybe even not so much bristles. It could just about stand their weight, balanced between one big man and one small man somehow it evened out to one fat man or so they figured.

"Rejoice greatly, O children of Zion: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." The Reverend was prone to quoting; he loved to say this every few miles, the worn-out joke looking as tattered and short of breath as the fucking beast that carried them. But it was also his money that paid for the grub and his word that got them both drinks and warm flea-bit beds with warmer flea-bit girls.

"How the hell'd the Lord ride upon an ass and upon the foal of an ass at the same time?" Montparnasse scoffed. "Maybe he was like two fat men."

"Oh, my child. You know the Lord works in mysterious ways. Any man that can turn water into wine can ride two critters at once if he wanted to," Slim grinned.

"Once I saw a man ride two horses at once, one foot on each horse. Paid two bits to see it at a circus show."

"Oh yes, my son. The Lord is a showman! He turns loaves and fishes into crowds, into multitudes that come to see his travelin show. Peter, Paul...all the great apostles were travelin showmen! Only in those primitive days, they weren't nearly so sophisticated as we in this modern 19th Century to charge for the privilege. Didn't deduct them travel fees or the cost of hay or the upkeep of tents. Or so I figure." Slim gave him the side of his eye. "But do keep them questions to yourself once we cross into the valley. Thems folks, they don't take too kindly to clever questions. A few months of quiet obedience and studious study and you'll be kept in whiskey and oysters for the rest of your days."

"Yeah, yeah." Montparnasse dragged his hat down lower, damn this sun that wanted to burn him black like a moor. He fussed at his gloves, picking off bits of lint that stuck to other bits of lint that stuck to his fingertips. "Still I don't get why you're comin with. I thought you ain't got no more book learnin to do."

"Oh, I can always use a few good meals and some pious living, my friend. Why, all them days on the road, they be hard on a man's soul." But even Montparnasse knew that it was a lie. Those eyes were too scheming even for this scheme. He wondered what it was. Must be a woman, Montparnasse thought. Always a fucking woman to make a man do stupid shit and get his ass in a world of trouble.

The mule's legs creaked as they ascended to the top of the hill, and it stopped at the vertex, refusing to budge.

Slim gave him a nudge. "Get your ass down and give her a push, son."

Grumbling, Montparnasse slid off the sway-back of the mule. If there was one thing he hated, it was animals. He hadn't never met a critter that was good for much but biting and shitting and scrabbling with a man over scraps of food. With his pocketknife, he cut a switch from one of the birch trees that lined the road.

"Don't drag your feet," Slim said. "Them hicks ain't like to hold supper for us."

"Why don't you just turn some of these mosquitoes into roast pheasants then, _Reverend_? Or that dung heap into a pile of chocolate souffle?"

"Don't you get fresh with me," Slim said. He shifted round on the mule and set its knobby legs to quivering. "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. If you catch my meaning."

"Sure, sure," Montparnasse said. Switch in hand, he laid into the mule's battered flank. The beast took a single lurching step, and then collapsed.

Slim leapt clear just in time to avoid being cast into the dirt. "Shit! Goddamn! What the hell did you do, boy?"

"Nothing!" Montparnasse said. He looked down at the ass, which was laying on its side now and returning his gaze with murderous intent. "Sway-back son-of-a-bitch. You knew it was ready for the glue factory when you bought it, so don't go acting like this is my fault."

Reverend Slim cast his eyes Heavenward. "Lord, I beseech thee, spare this boy the fury of your wrath. His hubris is great, but he ain't got but a handful of rocks rattlin around between his ears."

He took off his spectacles, wiped them on the grimy tail of his shirt, and then put them back in place. "Well? What are you waiting for? Pick up them bags. We'll have to walk the rest of the way."

By this point, Montparnasse had come to wonder if the Reverend's town wasn't in fact nothing but a pool of quicksand poised to swallow them both up. The further into the swampcountry they travelled, the less likely it seemed that anyone would want to live here willingly. All the same, Montparnsse was not ready to turn back yet. Taking account of what he had left behind revealed a grand total of jack, and shit. Even if he died out here, he would lose nothing. It was the potential, however remote, for what he had to gain that kept him moving.

* * *

As they sweated their way up to the pineshack chapel, Montparnasse scuffed his shoe on a rock and nearly gave way to a slew of angry guttersnipe swearing until he heard their voices. Voices like singing but without the music, chanting all together, breaths and words moving in a droning lilt. He could swear the whole pineshack's walls heaved and moved with their unison words like one giant organism made out of the the little lives inside.

"Shit...what the hell is this shit?" And for a moment he regretted coming here, regretted letting this swindler of a Reverend talk him into this insanity.

"Shut your mouth, boy. Remember, them's fightin words here to these people. You better watch your tongue if you wanna get some dinner."

"Sure. Sorry." He tugged out his none-too-clean handkerchief and swabbed at his face, making himself a little more presentable. Dragged his fingers through his pomaded hair, patting it into place. "We wait out here for them or what?"

"No, let's take a peek." Slim gave his carpetbag a sling, tossing it to the side of the steps.

"Is that a good idea?" Montparnasse clutched his bag as if at a life preserver. The voices were fading, and replaced with another, a harsh, growl of a voice that incongruously seemed to be saying things about goodness and happiness and the future.

"Ain't no one gonna steal in this place. Not the servants, not the farm help...you gotta be real moral and upright to live in a place like this." Slim winked at him. "It's fine. Just come on with me."

They slipped in through an open side door. Inside, it was hot, damp with humidity, the walls sweating with the heat of so many people packed in one little chapel. It stank like perfume and Macassar oil, cloying and sweet, covering the animal stink of the people inside. Slim drew him over to a back pew, surprisingly empty despite the amount of people inside.

"Not much of a looker." Montparnasse peered over the hats and heads of the men and women before him, catching glimpses of the pastor conducting the service.

"Looks ain't everything," Slim said. He was watching the scarred preacher very closely, like a student taking notes in a lecture hall.

Montparnasse rolled his eyes. "You never do quit, do you? You're a goddamn cannibal is what you are."

"Hush your mouth, son," Slim said softly.

When the preacher finished speaking a hush fell over the chapel. For what seemed a long time, no one spoke or moved or even coughed or sniffled. The whole damned town must have been crammed into this one room, but even the babies still at their mammy's breasts were silent.

Montparnasse wanted to squirm in his seat, to shuffle his boots, to do anything to break the horrible silence, but he was paralyzed. He had been struck dumb, he realized, sure as the day was long. They'd all lost their voices, only the rest of them didn't know it because they weren't trying to use them.

He felt panic closing his throat like gloved hands wrapped around his neck. His eyes bulged in their sockets; he could not even blink as the scarred preacher turned, gripping the edges of the pulpit in his fists. He took a hesitant step, and a silent shade appeared from a niche behind the altar. Dressed in funereal black, with hair so pale it was almost white; he took the preacher's arm gently and helped him descend from the pulpit.

It was three steps down, but each one seemed to take years. Montparnasse's lungs had petrified in his chest and he could not breathe. He felt waves of faintness washing over him. And then, all at once, the spell was broken.

The preacher's foot touched the ground and the rictus that had seized Montparnasse's muscles released all at once. He drew a great gulp of air, a sound which earned him an annoyed look from the Reverend Slim.

Damn what the Reverend thought. Damn what any of them thought. Montparnasse would have picked himself up right then and there and run his ass all the way back to Nouvelle Orleans if not for the way his legs were shaking.

Slim's hand came down hard on his knee, his long powerful fingers digging bruises into the skin. Montparnasse winced and tried to settle himself. At the front of the church, the preacher and his black-coated shadow parted. The man in black came around to the front of the chancel. A woman rose from the front pews. She was dressed in white, and the veil that covered her was so heavy that Montparnasse could say nothing about her looks save that her hair was dark.

"Oh, shit..." he whispered.

"It seems we have done come on an auspicious day," the Reverend Slim mused. Montparnasse was hardly listening anymore. It seemed that all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, and, above that, strangely clear and resonant, the scarred preacher's voice.

He went through the usual wedding fare. Love was patient; love was kind. But being fruitful and multiplying required a little more elbow grease. There was nothing so very different from the dozens of other weddings Montparnasse had witnessed in his time, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. The ceremony was too somber. The bride was bent at the shoulders, as if she bore a great burden. The groom never once smiled.

Lord, Montparnasse prayed, if this is what it means to be faithful, then Lord save me from ever believing in You.

Sooner than he had expected, the ceremony was over, but then again this was not one of the weddings of Paris where even the poor managed a day of opulence and stretched it out as long as they could. There was a deep hush, and Montparnasse marveled at how none of the congregation fidgeted, none of them moved, not to slap their children nor to wipe at sweat nor to fan themselves with a flick of an indelicate wrist. It was as still as death, and then the preacher intoned, in a low grave voice, "You may now kiss the bride."

The man in black took her hands, and brought the white-gloved hands up to his lips, pressing the most chaste kiss Montparnasse had ever seen in his life to the tips of her fingers. He wondered how that girl was going to manage, the rest of her life, stuck to a stick in the mud like the man in black, who couldn't even do her justice on her wedding day. But then perhaps she liked them stuffy; she was probably afraid of a real man who could show her a real good time.

Just like that it was over. People began to move, as the couple headed out the door. Felicitations were murmured as people rushed to greet the groom. Montparnasse slipped through the crowd up to the end of the aisle, his curiosity getting the best of him. He wanted to see this poor sappy milkmaid that got herself hitched to this man who was stiffer than a preacher but surely not stiff enough to keep a girl happy.

The big doors swung open and the harsh glare of the midday sun streamed through the door. By a stroke of luck, just as it did, the bride passed him and the brightness of the sunlight made the heavy veil disappear into transparency and Montparnasse could see her face.

"Azelma...?" But his voice was lost in the buzz of the crowd around him and besides, she didn't hear a word he said.


	9. Chapter 8

For some hours, Emmanuel presided at the feast and dispensed cool graciousness to his guests. Stewed oysters, roast pork, thick wedges of hot corn bread, chilled watermelons from the wells, and even a large bubbling cauldron of the local gumbo for the laborers and house slaves, given holiday on this momentous occasion. There was enough cake made for even the lowest of the workers to have a thin slice. There was no point in not sharing the good fortune, after all; did He not direct His servants in their duties to the less fortunate?

Emmanuel ate lightly, as was his custom; Azelma barely at all. He appeared to take no notice of this, but served her himself, directing servants to give her choice cuts that she picked at listlessly.

"Wedding day jitters, I'm certain," he murmured to Apollyon, who was seated at his right.

"I think she's worn out," Apollyon said softly under his breath. "You should take her home."

"In due time," Emmanuel smiled. "We haven't cut the cake yet." He straightened, and glanced around. "I find it curious that I have yet to see the Widow today."

Apollyon gave him a thoughtful look. "She informed me before the ceremony that she had a special gift for you on this momentous day. But I haven't seen her since. However, we do have some visitors. Do you know them?"

"No." Emmanuel looked at the pair thoughtfully. "But I know the Lord has guided them here to take the doctrine."

"Of course." Apollyon sipped at his lemonade, tart, faintly sweetened with sugar they produced themselves. Nothing they ate today came from outside the valley; even the tables were made with wood hewn from the hills and carted down for the occasion. He dared a glance at Azelma. She was bent over her plate, moving tidbits around with her knife and fork as if the motion would reveal hidden meaning or at least give her the appearance of indulging.

"You should speed things up. For her sake." He pressed Emmanuel's hand lightly, and, finishing his lemonade, excused himself.

Emmanuel watched him walk away and called for the servants to bring the cake.

* * *

He was surprised that he was could lift her over the threshold with ease; she had lost weight since that first time he had caught her, stumbling from the docks. He waved to the guests who had followed the wedding procession, and politely closed the doors behind them, locking them in.

He guided her upstairs, one hand cradling her waist, the other holding her hand, walking her carefully one step at a time as she swayed in her heavy gown. He called for cool water and a maid to undress her; the poor thing was nearly soaked through with sweat.

"I gave her the day off," Azelma said. Her voice was steady, but the bottom seemed to have fallen out of it. There was no strength to the words.

"I see." Emmanuel frowned and again he rang the bell that chimed in the servant's quarters. "Surely someone is still about..."

"Oh, leave them be," Azelma sighed. "I can manage on my own."

She stood up, and wavered unsteadily on her feet. Emmanuel was already at her side, as if he had foreseen it; he set a solicitous hand on her arm, guiding her back to the chair. "Just rest. You've done plenty for one day."

He knelt at her feet and began to unlace her white shoes. Azelma stared down at his bent head, thinking that this was her husband now, though once he had been nothing but a handsome, mysterious stranger. It seemed she could not reconcile the two ideas, no matter how hard she tried. He was and would always be two different men, with a clean break in between them.

"I don't know what's wrong," Azelma murmured. "I've never felt so weak before."

She let her head fall back and stared up at the ceiling. Emmanuel took off her shoes and set them aside. He caressed her ankles with his fingertips, running his thumbs back over her heels and tracing the high arches of her feet.

"It's only the heat," he said. "In time, you'll grow accustomed to it."

He stood up and went to the basin. A moment later, he returned to her side, having soaked his own handkerchief in cool water. Azelma gripped the arms of the chair in her hands, clinging fast to them as Emmanuel removed her veil and laid it aside. He touched the wet cloth to her temples, and she felt the knot of pain behind her brow gradually loosening.

Annoyed, she bit the inside of her lip. She didn't want it to be that easy for him.

Emmanuel seemed not to notice. He dabbed the sides of her throat, the crescent of her chest that showed above the neckline of her wedding gown. A bead of water rolled slowly down the valley between her breasts, and Azelma shuddered. One of Emmanuel's hands crept up the back of her neck and came to rest on the tight twist of her dark hair. He bent all at once, a movement as swift and decisive as the falling of a scythe, and pressed his lips against the bend of her shoulder. His breath was hot against the sheen of cool water there.

"E-Emmanuel..." She sighed, just barely managing to stifle a moan. "...should...should apologize..."

He smiled against her shoulder, and drew back. "It's all right, my dear." He took her hands in his. "I know you don't come to me pure...and I forgive you."

Azelma's eyes flashed, and she pushed him away. "I meant you."

Surprised, he stumbled, nearly falling before righting himself. "What do you mean, me?"

"You ought to apologize to me. You're the one who lied to me, you son of a-" And she gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth, beating back the curses on the tip of her tongue. But then her eyes flashed again, and she slapped her hands down on the arms of the chair, gripping them as if she could crush them. "You lied to me, Emmanuel. All this time, you've been lying. And...and I don't need your forgiveness!"

"Darling, you're just overwrought." Emmanuel came forward, and took her hands, slipping off the gloves before kissing them, one after another, nothing like the decorous touch in the church, but something more carnal, something that sent shivers up her spine. "Just let me take care of you. Now that you're a married woman, you don't have to worry about a thing. I'll handle everything."

"I don't...I mean. I'm still mad at you. You ought to apologize," Azelma sighed, as his hands undid her hair, and the tension of the pins holding it back eased. "You ought to..." She tried staying mad at him, but it seemed like too much of an effort. It was easier to just sit and let his hands caress through the tangled curled locks of her hair, easing the headache away.

"Shhh. Let me take care of everything, my lovely one."

* * *

Exhausted, but too anxious to sleep, Azelma curled up on her side in the big bed, listening to the sound of Emmanuel's breathing, a faint rattle that was not enough to be a snore, but louder than silent breathing.

For his sake, thinking back to Brother Apollyon's exhortations that he was a good man, she had planned and prepared for this night, promising herself that she would feign innocence; it was easy to pretend her virtue had only been compromised once, maybe twice, back in those sinful days and let him think what he thought.

But Emmanuel turned out to be a surprise.

Azelma had readied herself for the perspiring fumblings of a virgin. She had been ready for disappointment, even embarrassment, and she had cautioned herself not to let either show. For all Emmanuel's meekness and genteel manners, he was still a man. There was his pride to think about.

However, from the moment his hands had closed around her corseted waist, Azelma had felt a surprising authority in his touch. He had slipped the laces from their eyelets, and they had twined and slithered between his fingers like serpents, and then he had stood her there before him in the low light of the candles and looked her over. His eyes had come slowly up her body to meet hers, and Azelma had seen in his expression that he was neither pleased nor disappointed, but that she had passed inspection.

He'd been a gentleman, right up until the very end. He hadn't forgotten his breeding or his manners. No filthy words from his pure lips; only the most gallant of compliments. His hands had traversed every inch of her body, but he'd never gotten rough. His palms were as dry and as soft as tissue paper, and when he had touched her it had given the impression of a tepid breeze rolling over her skin rather than any substantial human contact.

Careful so as not to wake him, Azelma half turned so she could see his sleeping profile. He seemed satisfied, and, reaching down into herself and inspecting all the half-hidden pathways of her body, Azelma came to the conclusion that she was as well. But she still couldn't sleep; even closing her eyes seemed an intolerable prospect.

Pushing back the blanket carefully so as not to disturb Emmanuel, she slipped out of bed. The thick carpet felt damp beneath her bare feet. Until now, she had never been completely naked in this new house. There had always been a protective armor of petticoats, of stockings, of sensible cotton underthings, between her and the moist, clinging air.

She took her nightgown from the top of the chest near the bed and shook out the creases. If Emmanuel woke now, she would tell him that she feared taking a chill. The night was still warm, but it had cooled dramatically since the afternoon. He would have no reason to not believe her.

It was as she stood there contemplating him in the moonlight that streamed in through the bay window that Azelma realized he never had apologized.

She would press the matter, she thought. In the morning, she would take up the conversation in the exact place that she had put it down. Emmanuel had wanted a wife, not a mistress, and in Azelma wanted to make sure that there was no confusion between them. Her dowry included a stake in her life here, a guiding hand in her own destiny. It was no more and no less than she had ever asked of any man, beginning with her father and going right on down the line.

Azelma dropped her nightgown over her head and let the hem fall to her feet. Almost immediately she regretted it, for the layers of tulle and lace closed around her like a lead coffin. She felt the heat pressed close against her body, and all at once her head was reeling. One hand clutched at the high collar, tearing open the Chinese clasps that secured the nightgown at her throat.

She had never fainted before, but she felt that she was swooning now, and she bit down on her sleeve and rallied herself. Steady now, steady, she pushed open the French door and stepped out onto the balcony. A night breeze was stirring, and when it touched her temples and her brow, Azelma revived.

With both hands, she clutched the balustrade. At first, she tilted her head back and looked up at the stars. On her first sea voyage, the one that existed in the faraway time before her marriage, a dashing young sailor had stood by the ships railing with her one night and pointed out the stars used in navigation. Azelma's attention had been only half focused on the sky, and so she had missed half the lesson, but pieces of it came back to her now.

She found Ursa Major, and from there the North Star. She found Cygnet – still in ascent – and she knew that the time was a little after midnight.

Feeling as if she had oriented herself somewhat, Azelma lowered her head, letting her gaze sweep over the Valley. All was quiet at this time of night. There was not a single window in which a candle still burned.

Resting her wait on the banister, Azelma leaned out into the breeze.

She happened to glance down into the garden, and all at once, with a strangled gasp, she drew back.

Trembling, Azelma stood bolt upright on the balcony. Her fingers were still locked around the banister, and she looked at them in mute horror as if they were chains that held her rooted to the spot.

She had only seen it for a moment, but she was certain. Yes, she knew tricks of the light, the overactive imagination, and this had been neither.

There had been a shadow standing below the balcony, a black shape staring up at her. The moonlight had fallen full upon it, and the night was bright with stars, but Azelma had not been able to make out a single feature of its face. It was as if there had been nothing but a black emptiness there, a space where no light could enter.

Azelma's legs trembled and gave out, lowering her, gently, to the ground. She put her back to the railing, pulled her knees up to her chest, but she knew that it did nothing to hide her from the shadow below. Its eyeless sight could pierce right through the balcony floor, right through her heavy nightdress, right through her flesh and into her very bones.

She was gripped by a horrible vision, like a hand around her throat: she saw the shadow leave the ground, and where its feet should have been she saw that it ended abruptly, jaggedly, like a letter with the end torn off. It floated upward, buoyed steadily aloft. It was passing the tops of the first floor windows now. Soon it would crest the railing of the balcony, and it would be behind her then, looking down.

"Emmanuel…" she said, but her voice did not rise above a whisper. She did not dare turn around, but she felt loathsome eyes on the back of her neck. Eyes like sores, like patches of decay on dead flesh.

She grabbed the hem of her nightgown in both hands, so tightly that it tore, and then her next breath came in a wordless cry and she whipped around.

She saw nothing there.


	10. Chapter 9

Montparnasse took careful little tugs at the bottle, tiny sips savoring the burn of the whiskey. It was contraband, but damned if he wasn't going to make it last all the way through this schooling phase. It was deplorably warm here, wet and stuffy in such a way that even the big cities weren't. All this clean country air, he decided, was good for nothing but eunuchs and women.

Speaking of women, he thought about how nice it would be to have one just about now, to be out whoring around instead of sitting on this dilapidated bench beneath the heavy shade of a weeping willow just outside the men's dormitories. He had wandered far enough away to get away from the rattling snores of the other men, but not too far; didn't want to get in trouble the first night because someone thought he was a sneak-thief - he had enough of that world to last a lifetime.

Hearing the whisper of footsteps, he quickly capped the bottle and tucked it safe into his coat and unfolded himself from the bench seat, moving noiselessly into the shadows.

A wispy white apparition appeared and for a moment, his breath caught and a chill went through his spine. But then the image sharpened as he grew near and he relaxed. It was just a woman.

He watched her as she walked along. Did her tread seem familiar? Certainly she was up to no good, heading toward the men's dorms. The way her hair was loose in the moonlight sent a jerk of arousal through him. The nightdress was near transparent in parts; he thought he could see the curve of bosom as she moved, and did see the curve of her rear as she caught the hem, holding the edges of her skirt up out of the dust. And then, there it was, a flash of tender ankle.

If she wasn't looking for trouble, she was sure in the right place. Montparnasse ran his hand lightly over his hair, checking to see if everything was in order before he stepped forward to 'offer his services.'

Just as he moved, she turned toward him, and he realized who she was.

"Shit...Azelma." Montparnasse was so stunned that for a moment, all he could do was laugh, a silent wheezing laugh that came from years of experience.

Startled, her eyes widened and she turned to go, but he ran forward and caught her wrist.

"It's really you, ain't it?" And all that gutter French slid back into his voice and the hard and soft consonants ran together. "Here I thought I had gone crazy for seeing you in that church, but it looks like my eyes ain't foolin me."

She struggled briefly, and he could see that she was considering if she should scream or pretend that she was truly an outraged matron like all the other ladies must be in this little town, so he pressed a finger to her lips.

"Shhh. Don't do what you're thinking to do. Them churchy types...They wouldn't take it well, not from me, not from you. Come on." He gestured with a jerk of his head. "Let's get out of the middle of the street, don't want anyone to see us." His voice was a flat whisper, the same kind that he used all those years for getting through a job, the kind that couldn't be heard from more than a few steps away. And when he saw the look in her eyes, he knew she understood.

They stood beneath the concealing shadows of the willow tree, near the thick black trunk.

"Our little Azelma, all growned up." Montparnasse chuckled to himself. "Why, your sister would've died from jealousy if she saw how pretty you looked in that wedding dress. Just died of jealousy!"

"Montparnasse..."

"And what about your dear father? Where was he today to give you away? Instead, you had to make do with that straw-haired scarecrow in the bad suit? What happened to all that filial piety that you were so famous for, Azelma?"

"Give me a drink," Azelma said abruptly. She did not look right at him, but rather a little past his left shoulder, as if she could not bring herself to see his face but she did not want him to know that.

Startled, Montparnasse produced the bottle of whiskey and held it out to her. "How'd you know I...?"

"You're not out here to see me, that's for certain." Azelma took a sip, just a little dainty one.

Montparnasse frowned. "You can have more than that. Unless you don't remember how to drink it, that is."

"Any more and he'll smell it on me." Azelma put the cap resolutely back on the bottle. "Before tonight, I wouldn't have thought he'd be the type to even notice a little thing like that. But he knows more than I ever gave him credit for. At least now I know he knows, so at least he doesn't have that to hold over me..."

"Well, hell," Montparnasse said, at a loss for anything better. He took the bottle back and finished off the drink that Azelma had not taken. "Wait here a minute. Promise I won't be long."

He crept out from under the shadow of the willow and into the surrounding crunch of trees. He look off his yellow glove and ran his hand along the trunks until he found the one with the gnarled bark that he was looking for. He drew out his pen knife and shaved a plug of hardened sap from one of the knotholes. Rolling it in his hand to make it soft, he brought it back to Azelma.

"Here, bite down on this. Hides the liquor on your breath, I find."

Azelma seemed startled, perhaps even offended by the suggestion. She made no move to reach for the plug of pinegum.

"Here, just..." Montparnasse thrust it out suddenly, pressing it to her lips. "Look, I brung it for you. Least you can do is take it."

Azelma's eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth just a fraction, enough for him to push the gum past her lips.

"Just chew on that a spell," Montparnasse said. He watched her working it between her teeth, her jaw clenching and unclenching as if she were thinking about some man she hated. As if she were reliving a moment that had made her furious.

Montparnasse sighed. "What the hell are you doing her, anyway? I mean... this place... someone like you."

"I might ask you the same thing," she replied.

She wasn't anything like Eponine had been, Montparnasse realized then. It seemed obvious when you thought about it, but he knew he had not noticed it before. Azelma didn't have the raw smarts her sister'd had, but she had a weathered suspicious way. Couldn't pull nothing over on her. Not Azelma, not anymore.

"Hustling, if you really must know," Montparnasse said.

"Fine," Azelma said. "That makes two of us."

"What the hell kind of hustle gets you a ring around your finger?" Montparnasse gave her a look. "Is he rich?"

She gave him a sharp look of disdain. "Isn't it obvious? But I didn't know until I got here..."

"You didn't know?" He felt his voice crack on the words and scowled. "How do you...damn fool of a...you came all the way here from Paris just-"

"Shhh..."

Chastised, Montparnasse shut his mouth. He hadn't known he was getting loud, but Azelma wasn't the sort to get jumpy for no reason.

"Look at you," she said contemptuously. "Getting all worked up over a trifle like this. But if you had been there when I needed you... if anyone had been there..."

"Whoa," Montparnasse said. "Whoa, whoa. I ain't about to let you pin this on me."

"No, I'm not blaming you. Not for this, nor for what happened to my sister."

Montparnasse glanced away, finding it suddenly very hard to hold her eyes. "That was a long time ago. There was no way I could have known she was going to do what she done."

"Which is why I don't blame you," Azelma said steadily. Something in her tone just then... Something Montparnasse could not place, something he didn't want to place...

"Just so long as that fella is good to you," he muttered.

"It's none of your business what he is, or what he isn't," Azelma replied. She dipped her head and spit the wetly glittering plug of pine sap into her fist, then she tossed it away.

"I have to go," she said. "I only came out here to look for something. But I can see I was mistaken."

Montparnasse felt his stomach tighten uncomfortably. "It wasn't... You weren't looking for me, were you?"

Azelma laughed, a breathy sound that barely rose above the level of a whisper. "Good night, Montparnasse."

She turned to go, and he reached out to catch hold of her sleeve. His fingers brushed the voluminous folds, but something stopped him. "Azelma, wait. I don't understand anything that's going on here. Can't I see you again sometime?"

"That's not a good idea, Montparnasse."

"I didn't mean I wanted to..." Montparnasse made a soft sound of frustration in the back of his throat. "I just want to talk."

"'Parnasse..."

And it was like a punch in the gut, that old nickname. How many years had it been since he last heard it? A sudden rush of memories; that time the two sisters stood at the end of the pont waiting for him, arms linked to keep each other warm. It was snowing, just a little, and he had rushed over, cheeks pinched red from the cold.

The memory faded like tiny melting flakes of snow against bare skin.

"Please, Azelma."

"No. I'm sorry, but I am a married woman now." She drew herself up with a sort of cool contempt that he had only seen in her sister before. A hard-edged dignity that aped the fancy shop girls that sold paste jewel slippers which in turn came from those haughty rich ladies with their fur cuffs and silk shoes. "And I would not forget that soon."

"...all right. If that's what you want." Montparnasse tried to find all those nasty things he would say to a woman that turned him down, and found, to his surprise, that he was strangely empty of vindictiveness.

Time had passed. That little girl that had clove to the side of her sister, gazing at him with great dark eyes was now a woman grown up.

She paused, before going. "Sorry." And left in a rush of dusty footsteps, melting into the night.

"Yeah. Me too." Montparnasse felt the curve of the bottle in his coat and hugged it close to him. "Sorry."


End file.
